THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD 
 
 FOR THE 
 ENGLISH READING ROOM 
 
 From J(. 
 B00 : -
 
 THE 
 
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 V AND ITS 
 
 EARLY LITERATURE. 
 
 J. H. GILMOEE, A. M., 
 
 PBOFE88OE OF LOUIC, BIIETOKIC AND ENGLISII IN TUB UNIVKKSITY OF KOC1IE8TBE. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 1887.
 
 COPTEIGHT BY 
 
 J. II. GILMOEE, 
 
 1879. 
 
 COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 J. H. GILMORE, 
 
 1S78.
 
 p 
 
 AND ITS 
 
 EARLY LITERATURE. 
 
 1. Why shonld we study the origin and history of the 
 English language ? 
 
 It is matter of interest to every person of intelligence 
 and feeling to know who his ancestors were, what they 
 thought, and how they expressed their thoughts. 
 
 Familiarity with their thoughts and their modes of 
 expression must, to some extent, enrich the mind of the 
 student, and fit him better to play his part in the drama 
 of life. The ancient literatures whether Greek, Latin, 
 or English preserve for us the winnowed grain of the 
 human intellect, and no man can afford to ignore them. 
 
 More than this, there is, as Henry Heed* has well 
 said, "a continuity in a nation's literary, as well as poli- 
 tical, life ; and no generation can cast off the accumulated 
 influence of previous ages without grievous detriment to 
 itself." Ko force once generated whether physical or 
 intellectual is ever lost. The present character of a 
 people is largely determined by the character of their an- 
 cestors and the circumstances in which those ancestors 
 
 * Englisli Literature, p. 58.
 
 4 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 were developed. The political institutions of a people 
 are but the unfolding of a germ implanted centuries ago, 
 and matured by all the influences to which that people 
 has since been subjected. So it is with the literature of a 
 people. All the past enters into the present, and makes 
 it what it is. The present will enter into all the future, 
 and give it character. A nation's literary history records 
 the germination and growth, through shade and sunshine, 
 of seeds which were implanted in the soil centuries ago 
 the development of principles which are as old, to say the 
 least, as the language in which they are to-day embodied. 
 Hence, to apprehend fully the literary character of any 
 age, we must submit ourselves to the formative influences 
 which have made its literature what it is. Thorough- 
 ly to understand the dramas of Shakspere, the essays of 
 Bacon, the poems of Milton, we must go back into the 
 dim and dusty past and learn how Shakspere, Bacon, 
 and Milton came to think and speak as they did ; for no 
 one even of these master minds was sufficient unto him- 
 self they were all, more or less, indebted to the past. 
 
 What has been said with reference to English litera- 
 ture is equally true indeed, rather more true with ref- 
 erence to the English language. In order thoroughly to 
 comprehend and effectively to use the English of the 
 present day, we must study the English of the past we 
 must know the language not merely in its developed form, 
 but in its germinal principles. Bishop Thomson * notices 
 the fact that, "with increasing cultivation, finer distinc- 
 
 * Laws of Tfiouffht, 21. In illustration of his moaning, the abla- 
 tive case denoted in Latin, " cause, manner, means, or instrument," with- 
 out minutely discriminating which. But we sharply distinguish between 
 these different relations appropriating a separate preposition to each. 
 For example : lie killed the man from envy [cause] ; ly stealth [man- 
 ner] ; through treachery [means] ; with a dagger [instrument]. Com- 
 pare the use of the same form, in Latin, for the subjective and objective 
 genitive. Sec the author's Art of Exp-ession, p. 21.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 5 
 
 tions arc seen between the relations of objects, and corre- 
 sponding expressions arc sought for, to denote them ; " 
 and wisely says : "As the distinctions between the rela- 
 tions of objects grow more numerous, involved, and sub- 
 tle, language becomes more analytic, to be able to express 
 them ; and, inversely, those who are born to be the heirs 
 of a highly analytic language, must needs learn to think 
 up to it, to observe and distinguish all the relations of ob- 
 jects, for which they find the expressions already formed, 
 so that wo have an instructor for the thinking powers in 
 that speech which we are apt to deem no more than their 
 hand-maid and minister." 
 
 Now the English is the most highly analytic of living 
 languages ; and hence the duty of educating themselves 
 up to their mother - tongue of acquiring a practical 
 familiarity with the minute distinctions which have been 
 developed in the course of its history rests more impera- 
 tively on English-speaking students than on those of any 
 other nation. 
 
 2. How should we study the English language and lit- 
 erature ? 
 
 We propose, then, to consider the origin and develop- 
 ment of the English language ; and to approach that sub- 
 ject as, indeed, it can only be intelligently approached 
 from an ethnologic and historic point of view.* In 
 studying the philology of a people, we must, at the same 
 time, study their ethnology and history. We can have 
 no just conception of English literature unless, as we 
 trace its progressive development, we couple with it the 
 gradual unfolding of English political and social life, f 
 
 * See Shedd, Literary Essays, p. 41. 
 
 f Most of our " English literatures " are at fault just here. They pay 
 more attention to English literary history than they do to English Utera, 
 lure. At the close of a terra's study a student may be able to enumerate
 
 6 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 The necessity for the ethnologic and historic stndy of 
 the English language is emphasized by the fact that the 
 English is a highly composite language. With reference 
 to this point Max Miiller says : "There is, perhaps, no 
 language so full of words evidently derived from the most 
 distant sources. Every country of the globe seems to 
 have brought some of its verbal manufactures to the in- 
 tellectual market of England." * Unless we take at least 
 a cursory view of the races which blend in the British 
 people, the dialects which contribute to British speech, 
 we can hardly lay claim to any very accurate and thor- 
 ough knowledge of the language of our fathers. And, 
 without a knowledge of the language, our knowledge of 
 the literature must be, at best, meager and superficial 
 we may derive pleasure, but we can not derive the utmost 
 profit, from reading. 
 
 all of Shakspere's plays and tell you what Coleridge or Hazlitt, Gervi- 
 nus or Ulrici, thinks of them, without ever having read a play of Shak- 
 spere for himself. More than this, our "English literatures" utterly 
 disconnect the literary from the social and political history of the land of 
 which they treat. The student of English literature should always have 
 by him acompend of English history, which may be hurriedly consulted 
 on points of prime importance. Miss Edwards's little manual which can 
 be obtained for twenty cents is as good as any. The best general his- 
 tory of England, for student use, is, unquestionably, Green's Short His- 
 tory of the English People, price $1.50. Knight's Popular History of 
 England, 8 vols., is invaluable ; and the American edition costs but $10.00. 
 Both these histories embody facts, rather than opinions, and do not exclu- 
 sively discuss military and political complications. 
 
 English literature, as ordinarily taught, is one of the driest and most 
 repulsive of studies. It may be made one of the most interesting, by as- 
 sociating the literary with the political and social history of the people ; 
 by withdrawing attention from the minute details of literary history, and 
 fixing it only upon salient points ; by studying authors, as well as study- 
 ing about authors. 
 
 * On the contributions to our vocabulary from miscellaneous sources, 
 see Morris, Outlines of English Accidence, p. 32 sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 7 
 
 3. Into what three families are the languages and races 
 of mankind divided? 
 
 The races which people the earth, and the languages 
 which they speak (for race and language, be it under- 
 stood, go ever hand in hand), have been divided into 
 three great families : 
 
 THE INDO-EUROPEAN. 
 
 THE SEMITIC. 
 
 THE ALLOPHYLIAN, or TURANIAN. 
 
 This classification by no means meets the demands of 
 modern linguistic science ; since the Allophylian is a mere 
 aggregation of all languages that are not Indo-European 
 or Semitic, without especial regard to their character- 
 istics. It is, however, sufficiently exact for our present 
 purpose.* 
 
 4. Characterize the Semitic family; the Allophylian 
 family. 
 
 The Semitic family is so named from Sem, or Shem, 
 the son of Noah. It embraces the Arabian, the Hebrew, 
 and the Aramaean ; the latter of which is sub-divided 
 into the Syriac and the Chaldee. All these languages are 
 characterized by triliteral roots (or roots composed of 
 three consonants), and by great simplicity of construction. 
 
 The name Allophylian is derived from a/Uo$- (another) 
 and fyvXri (race). It means, therefore, "the rest of man- 
 kind." Turanian is derived from Tur, one of three bro- 
 thers from whom, in Persian legend, the race is said to 
 be descended. It is impossible to characterize the lan- 
 guages of this family. The claim that they are all in the 
 " agglutinative " stage f is without foundation. 
 
 * For a more minute classification, see Morris, Outlines of English 
 Accidence, pp. 7-12. Cf. Johnson's Encyclopaedia, article "Man." 
 f See the author's Art of Expression, p. 18.
 
 8 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 5. State and illustrate the points of distinction between 
 these three linguistic families. 
 
 With reference to language, which afforded the origi- 
 nal basis for the classification that we have indicated, the 
 Indo-European, Semitic, and Allophylian families are dis- 
 tinguished from each other : 
 
 1. By a difference in those roots which express ideas 
 that are common to every people. Thus we find great 
 similarity between those words that express the maternal 
 relationship, so long as we keep within the bounds of the 
 Indo-European family of languages a similarity which 
 is due not so much to the derivation of one language from 
 another, as to their descent from the same parent stock. 
 E. g. : 
 
 Sans, matri. Oer. Mutter. 
 
 Pers. mader. Id. modhir. 
 
 Gr. /M?T?7p. Eng. mother. 
 
 Lat. mater. IrisJi. mathair. 
 
 It. Sp. Port, madre. Litli. moter. 
 
 Fr. mere. Sclav, mater. 
 
 The moment we pass into the Semitic family of languages, 
 we find a different root to express this idea. E. g. : 
 
 Heb. eymm. Arab. umm. 
 
 Passing, again, into the Turanian family of languages, 
 we find still a different word for "mother." E. g. : 
 
 TurTc. ana. Hung. anya. 
 
 2. By a difference in inflections. Compare the fre- 
 quent Indo-European plural termination in s with a 
 connecting vowel (Sans, bhratar-as, Lat. fratr-es, Eng. 
 brother-s) with the Semitic plural termination in im 
 (E. g., cherub, cherub-im).* 
 
 * llie Students Handbook of Comparative Grammar, by Rev. Thomas 
 Clark, A. M., will afford copious illustrations of the similarity which pre-
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 9 
 
 3. By a difference still more marked and decisive (but 
 which it is very difficult to illustrate to one unfamiliar 
 with a Semitic or Allophylian tongue) in the structure of 
 sentences and the general character of the languages.* 
 
 6, To what extent may we expect to find points of resem- 
 blance between the different linguistic families, or points of 
 diversity within a single family ; and why ? 
 
 Of course, the languages spoken by these different 
 families will resemble each other in some degree ; for all 
 have been shaped and molded by minds similarly consti- 
 tuted, f and all are uttered by the same organs of speech. 
 This similarity will be especially marked in onomatopoetic 
 roots or words which originated in the imitation of a 
 sound (cf. the Eng. hum with the Heb. h^m!*, which has 
 the same meaning) ; and in words which seem to have 
 originated in the natural fitness of certain sounds to ex- 
 press certain ideas (cf. the Gr. larrnii, the Lat. stare, the 
 Ger. stehen, the Eng. stand, with the Heb. s^th'm, and 
 s^Fn which have substantially the same meaning). 
 
 Of course, between the members of each family there 
 will be owing to the differing circumstances in which 
 they have been developed many and striking points of 
 difference. J Thus, between the Gr. avf]p, the Lat. homo, 
 and the Ger. Mann, there seems to be no affinity what- 
 ever ; but each is modified in the same way that is, by s 
 with a connecting vowel to express possession. 
 
 vails, both in roots and inflections, within the bounds of the Indo-European 
 family. Cf. Parkhurst, Analysis of (he Latin Verb. 
 
 * See Tancock, English Grammar, p. 3. The student may get some 
 idea of what is here meant, by contrasting the complicated and inverted 
 sentences of the Latin and the Greek (and even of the German, with its 
 separable prepositions) and the simple, straight-forward structure of the 
 English Bible, which is largely influenced by the Hebrew. 
 
 f See the author's Art of Expression, p. 7. 
 
 | See the author's Art of Expression, p. 8.
 
 10 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 Some of the most striking points of difference between 
 the languages of the Indo-European family have been so 
 systematized, by linguistic science, as to afford new and 
 most striking proofs of kinship. No better illustration 
 of this fact can be found than is afforded by " Grimm's 
 Law," which is of especial interest, and no little practical 
 importance, to the student of English. 
 
 7. State and illustrate " Grimm's Law." 
 
 For our present purpose, we may divide the Indo- 
 European languages into three classes : 
 
 1. The Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, etc. 
 
 2. The Low-German languages e. g. Anglo-Saxon, 
 English. 
 
 3. The High German represented by the modern 
 German. 
 
 There are three classes of mute consonants : 
 
 1. Labials TT (p) ; ft (b) ; <t> (f, ph or v). 
 
 2. Palatals (k) ; y (g) ; % (ch or h). 
 
 3. Dentals T (t) ; 6 (d) ; # (th). 
 These mutes j 
 
 are also classi- V 1. Hard. 2. Soft. 3. Aspirate. 
 fied as : ) 
 
 The following diagram introduces these letters so ar- 
 ranged as to illustrate our topic to the best advantage. 
 
 Now Jacob Grimm has given his name to a law which 
 reduces to system the variation of mute consonants be- 
 tween the same roots in different languages of the Indo- 
 European stock. This law is stated as follows by Clark.* 
 
 1. "Where in the first division of the Indo-European 
 languages (e. g. the Latin) a word has a soft mute : in the 
 second (e. g. the English), it has the corresponding hard ; 
 in the third (i. e. the High German), it has the corre- 
 
 * Comparative Grammar, p. 70 sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 
 
 11 
 
 spending aspirate. E. g. Odi, hate, hassen the th being 
 softened to a sibilant. 
 
 2. Where in the first division of languages a word has 
 a hard mute : in the second, it has the corresponding as- 
 pirate ; in the third, the corresponding soft. E. g. Tres, 
 three, drei. 
 
 3. Where in the first division of languages a word has 
 an aspirated mute : in the second, it has the correspond- 
 ing soft ; in the third, the corresponding hard. E. g. 
 dvpa, door, Thur. 
 
 That is : the Germanic languages in general have 
 pushed forward one step from the older forms ; the High 
 German has pushed forward two steps.* In passing from 
 the Latin or Greek to the English, you traverse one side 
 of our diagram in the direction indicated by the arrow- 
 head ; in passing from the Latin or Greek to the German, 
 you traverse two sides. 
 
 * See Whitney, Language and the Study of Language, pp. 97, 98.
 
 12 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 This law applies only to tlie mutes ; has reference to 
 sounds, not signs ; and is by no means without excep- 
 tions. The changes which it systematizes are not the 
 result of phonetic decay, which always proceeds from the 
 hard to the soft sounds, while here the process is as often 
 reversed. The law as we have already intimated strik- 
 ingly illustrates the kinship between the Indo-European 
 languages by showing that, where they most decidedly 
 differ, it is in accordance with a regular system.* 
 
 A few more illustrations are given premising that 
 the changes indicated are imperfectly exemplified in the 
 modern German, which, though descended from the old 
 High German, contains many Low German elements ; 
 and that many linguistic changes, besides those covered 
 by " Grimm's Law," have taken place in the words se- 
 lected for illustration. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF GRIMM'S LAW. 
 
 Latin and Greek. English. German. 
 
 pes ped-is, foot, Fuss. 
 
 doc-eo, teach, zeig-en. 
 
 gen-us, kin, [chuni]. 
 
 cannab-is, hemp, Hanf. 
 
 $r/p, deer, Thier. 
 
 Kap6-ia, heart, Herz. 
 
 vtiup, water, AVasser. 
 
 dens dent-is, tooth, Zahn. 
 
 septem, seven, sieben. 
 
 jug-um, yoke, loch. 
 
 * For a fuller statement and analysis of the law, see Max Miiller, 
 /Science of Language, second scries, p. 213 sq. For popular statements, 
 see Morris, English Arri'lcnce, p. 13 sq., English Lessons for Eng. People, 
 pp. 42-45. For the law put in its most portable form, see March, Study 
 of Eng. Lang., p. 115. The original statement is to be found in Griinin, 
 Deutsche Grammalik, v. i., p. 584, G'cschic/Uc dcr Dculschcn Sprat-he, v. i., 
 pp. 392-434.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 13 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS OF GRIMM'S LAW (Continued). 
 
 Latin and Greek. English. German. 
 
 turb-a, thorpe, Dorf. 
 
 fag-us, beech, 
 
 fui, be. 
 
 pisc-is, iish. 
 
 qui, who (A. S. hwa). 
 
 dtfi-tZ, doom. 
 
 church. 
 
 foal. 
 
 bear. 
 
 thine, dein. 
 
 dance, Tanz. 
 
 lewd, Leute. 
 
 8. Explain the significance of the epithets " Indo-Euro- 
 pean," " Aryan " ; and indicate, in a general way, the char- 
 acter and extent of the people to whom they are applied. 
 
 It is with the first only of the great linguistic and eth- 
 nologic families which we have recognized, that we have 
 now to do the Indo-European, so called because it had 
 its earliest known abodes on the banks of the Indus, 
 whence it has overspread the greater portion of Europe. 
 Instead of Indo-European, this is sometimes called the 
 Aryan family ; because the progenitors of the family are 
 supposed (though without sufficient proof) to have called 
 themselves Arya, or noble-born.* 
 
 We prefer to use the term "Aryan" as a convenient 
 designation of the prehistoric parent-stock, from which 
 the existing representatives of this family of languages 
 are descended ; while we term the historic representatives 
 of the family "Indo-European." The Aryans, then, 
 
 * Compare the epithet Aryan with the Latin arare and 0. E. ear 
 (Gen. 45 : 6) both meaning " to plough." See Oliphant, Sources of 
 Standard English, p. 1.
 
 14 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 may be conceived of as living, in prehistoric times, just 
 east of the Caspian Sea, and as being the progenitors of 
 the modern Indo-European nations. 
 
 The Sanskrit confessedly the oldest of the Indo-Euro- 
 pean languages affords conclusive evidence that, at a 
 very early period, the Aryan race had passed out of the 
 nomadic condition, were familiar with agricultural pur- 
 suits, and had made considerable progress in civilization.* 
 The historic nations of Indo-European descent are char- 
 acterized, to an exceptional degree, by intellectual vigor and 
 remarkable for that spirit of activity and enterprise which 
 has made them the masters of the known world. A single 
 branch of this widely-spread family (the Indie) includes 
 dialects as widely separated as the Sanskrit of the Vedas 
 and the gibberish of our strolling Gipsies f ; while all the 
 difference that can be claimed between the Bengali and 
 the English is that they are different branches of the 
 same parent stock. 
 
 9. Mention the various linguistic branches of the Indo- 
 European family. 
 
 The following may be accepted as a linguistic classifi- 
 cation of the INDO-EUROPEAH FAMILY : 
 
 1. The Indie preserved in the Sanskrit of the Vedas 
 and represented to more modern times by the Pali (or sa- 
 cred language of the Buddhists), the Bengali, etc. 
 
 2. The Iranic to which belong the Zend, preserved 
 in the Avesta (or sacred books of the Persians) and the 
 old Persian. 
 
 3. The Keltic possibly equal in antiquity to either of 
 those already named. Some of its more prominent sub- 
 divisions are to be noted hereafter. 
 
 * See Morris, Outlines of English Accidence, pp. 9-11. 
 f Who arc emphatically not Egyptian in race or language.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 15 
 
 4. The Hellenic including the various dialects of 
 Greece. 
 
 5. The Italic of which the Latin is the most promi- 
 nent representative (though it includes the Oscan, Umbri- 
 an, etc.) ; and which is represented to-day by what are 
 called the Eomanic languages e. g., Italian, Spanish, 
 Portuguese, and French. 
 
 6. The Teutonic which will be subsequently dis- 
 cussed. 
 
 7. The Lithuanic which formerly occupied a narrow 
 district extending from the Gulf of Finland to the con- 
 fines of Poland. Its modern representatives are found in 
 Livonia, Courland, and (according to De Quatrefages *) 
 in Prussia ; though the language of the Prussians is Teu- 
 tonic, and they are at the head of the German confed- 
 eracy. 
 
 8. The Sclavonic represented by the modern Bus- 
 sian. f 
 
 10. What is the basis of the affinity which exists be- 
 tween the Indo-European languages; and how were they 
 disseminated over Europe? 
 
 These groups of languages owe their affinity as has 
 already been remarked not to the fact of derivation 
 from one another ; but to the fact of common derivation 
 from an extinct language to which the term " Aryan " 
 may, perhaps, be applied, and of which the Sanskrit may 
 
 * The Prussian Race. 
 
 f This classification, it will be seen, covers most of the races and dia- 
 lects of modern Europe. The most notable exceptions are the Turks and 
 Hungarians, who are confessedly of Allophylian stock ; the Lapps and 
 Finns in northern Europe ; the Basques, and possibly the Skipctar, or 
 Albanians, in southern Europe who are supposed to be remnants of an- 
 cient races on whom the Indo-Europeans encroached. The Etruscans 
 would, by many, be placed in the same category.
 
 16 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 be accepted as the immediate representative. The lan- 
 guages descended from this parent-stock were dissemi- 
 nated by several successive waves of migration, which 
 swept, in the prehistoric age, from the orient, the mys- 
 terious cradle-land of our race, over the continent of 
 Europe. The first of these judging from the present 
 distribution of races may have been the Keltic wave, 
 which, dividing in Scythia (to reunite, it may be, in 
 Britain), hurled a part of its torrent across the continent 
 of Europe ; while another portion swept along the north- 
 ern coast of Africa, and made its way across the modern 
 Straits of Gibraltar, into Spain.* 
 
 The Italic and Hellenic waves so closely allied as to 
 be called, by some, the Italo-Hellenic followed, eddying 
 down into the south of Europe. 
 
 Then came the Litliuanic and the Teutonic irruptions, 
 sweeping their Keltic, Italic, and Hellenic predecessors to 
 the extreme western and southern limits of the continent. 
 
 Yet again, from the teeming womb of the east, came 
 the Sclavonic race, spreading over the broad expanse of 
 eastern Europe. 
 
 11. To what race did the earliest known inhabitants 
 of Britain belong ? What of the character and early Euro- 
 pean seats of that race ? 
 
 It is pretty generally conceded that the original in- 
 habitants of Britain belonged to the Keltic race brilliant, 
 generous, and brave ; but fickle, credulous, and over-im- 
 pulsive which was found, at the beginning of the Chris- 
 tian era, as Avid'ely dispersed as Galatia on the east and 
 Gallia on the west.f Some maintain that the Kelts sup- 
 
 * See Nicholas, Pedigree of the English People, p. 37. 
 
 f Cf. the names Galatae and Kcltae ; and note the similarity in point 
 of character between the Galatians to whom Paul wrote and the mercu- 
 rial French or Irish of to-day both the latter being of Keltic stock.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 17 
 
 planted in Britain a still more ancient race,* but this 
 theory is supported by scanty evidence ; and no one claims 
 that the earliest knoton inhabitants were indigenous to the 
 island. Their affinity to their Gallic neighbors is too 
 marked to admit that conjecture. They were, unmistak- 
 ably, kith and kin to the Gallic Kelts. 
 
 12. What indications have we respecting the time when 
 the earliest known inhabitants of Britain crossed from the 
 main-land ? 
 
 They must, then, have crossed from the main-land to 
 Britain. But when ? Evidently at a period when the art 
 of making and using boats had made some progress ; for 
 the English Channel at its narrowest point is 20 miles 
 wide, and very rough therefore, not at a very early pe- 
 riod, we may be sure, in the life of a race which sprang 
 from the heart of Asia. Yet not at a very recent period 
 in the prehistoric life of man ; for in the valley of the 
 Clyde, near Glasgow, rude canoes have been found twenty- 
 six feet above the highest point which the river now at- 
 tains, and apparently raised by the gradual emergence of 
 the land, f Further : in some of the sepulchral mounds, 
 of northern Britain, only implements of stone are found, 
 but, in the days of Herodotus (b. 484, d. 424 B.C.), 
 southern Britain furnished the world with tin, and must, 
 it would seem, have known the use of bronze, for the 
 manufacture of which tin was so eagerly sought. J It is 
 
 * See Pearson, England during the Early and Middle Ayes, vol. i., p. 2. 
 
 f See Hugh Miller, Popular Geology, pp. 59, 00. 
 
 It ought, perhaps, to be said that geologists are agreed that the Straits 
 of Dover are of comparatively recent formation, and that Great Britain 
 was formerly a part of the main-land. The same convulsion may have 
 formed the straits, and elevated northern Britain. We all know, how- 
 ever, what the geologist's " comparatively recent " means. 
 
 \ The earliest classical notice of Britain, eo nomine, is in Aristotle (b. 
 3S4 B. C.), who says : " Not a few small islands, around the Britannic
 
 18 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 highly probable (and, indeed, not wholly unsupported by 
 historic evidence*) that long after the inhabitants of 
 southern Britain had learned, from the neighboring tribes 
 on the continent, the art of working in metal, those who 
 dwelt in the rugged and barren fastnesses of the north 
 still made use of the rude implements of the stone age.f 
 Though Great Britain is barely 600 miles in length, com- 
 munication between the north and the south must, at the 
 time of which we are treating, have been tedious, slow, 
 and infrequent. 
 
 13. Give a classification of man with reference to the 
 implements which he employs, and indicate the nature of 
 the inferences to which this classification gives rise. 
 
 The stone age, we must remember, is, in the case of 
 any given people, an age of relative barbarism not of 
 absolute antiquity. The North American Indians were, 
 when this continent was discovered not yet 400 years 
 ago in the stone age. Indeed, implements of stone are 
 in use by various tribes on the American continent to-day. 
 It is not safe, therefore, to infer (as has been too fre- 
 quently done) that because a people used implements of 
 stone, they lived a long time ago. All that can be safely 
 affirmed is, that, in emerging from savagery to civiliza- 
 tion, every people use : 
 
 1. Implements of stone, { ; 
 
 2. " " bronze, 
 
 isles and Iberia, encircle, as with a diadem, this earth." De Mundo, 3. 
 Herodotus calls the tin islands " Cassiterides." 
 
 * See Dio Cassius, as quoted by Latham, Ethnology of British Isl- 
 and*, p. 56 sq. 
 
 f Some maintain that the stone implements found in Britain belong 
 to an older race whom the Kelts supplanted, while the bronze implements 
 were introduced by Kelts. See Keary, Dawn of History, p. 86.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 19 
 
 3. Implements of iron, 
 
 4. " " steel;* 
 
 and that those who used implements of stone, whenever 
 they may have lived, had just entered upon the process 
 of civilization. 
 
 As the result of our inquiry respecting the time when 
 the British Islands were first peopled from the main-land, 
 we can only answer : neither very early nor very late in 
 the prehistoric life of Europe. 
 
 14. Give a classification of the Keltic inhabitants of 
 Britain, and indicate their abodes at the dawn of authentic 
 history. 
 
 While it can hardly be matter of reasonable question f 
 that the inhabitants of Britain, at the time when they 
 come within the scope of history, belong, as a whole, to 
 that Keltic race which is found, at the same period, in 
 France between the Seine and Garonne, in Switzerland, 
 and, with some admixture, in Belgium,* we must dis- 
 criminate the early inhabitants of Britain into at least 
 two classes : 
 
 First, the Kymric Kelts, inhabiting the southern por- 
 
 * See Horace, Satires, B. 1, S. 3, L. 99 sq. Clodd's Childhood of the 
 World is very well worth the student's perusal just here. Also De Qua- 
 trefages's Natural History of Man, and Keary's Dawn of History. 
 
 f The fact has been questioned on craniological grounds the skulls 
 found in the sepulchral mounds of northern Britain being of the Teutonic 
 rather than the Keltic type. See Latham, Ethnology of British Islands, 
 p. 26 sq. For illustrations of the different types of skulls, see Nicholas, 
 Pedigree of the English People, p. 519. There can be no question that 
 northern Britain received, at a very early period, a considerable infusion 
 of Norse (i. e. Teutonic) blood. The fact that the northernmost county 
 of Britain is called south-land (Sutherland) is conclusive on that point. 
 
 \ Prichard and Latham regard the Belgas as Kelts ; but the fact is 
 not unquestioned. Sir F. Palgrave thinks at least one third of the Kym- 
 ric vocabulary consists of roots common to the Belgic. See Nicholas, ul 
 supra, p. 42.
 
 20 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 tion of Britain and speaking, at the dawn of history, a 
 language which had marked affinities with that of Ar- 
 morica or Brittany. The modern representatives of the 
 Kymric Kelts are the "Welsh.* 
 
 Secondly, the Gaelic Kelts, occupying the northern 
 portion of Britain and the whole of Ireland, and differ- 
 ing both in language, appearance, and culture from the 
 Kymri. They are represented, to-day, by the " wild 
 Irish " and the Highland Scotch. 
 
 Prominent among the somewhat numerous subordi- 
 nate varieties of the Keltic race f which were found in 
 Britain, may be mentioned the Cornish, who are, in race 
 and language, to be closely associated with the Kymri or 
 Welsh Kelts ; and the Manx (or inhabitants of the isle of 
 Man) who are Gaelic with a strong infusion of Norse. 
 
 15. What views are suggested with reference to the ori- 
 gin and affinities of the Scots and Ficts ? 
 
 The Scots and Picts, whose names appear quite fre- 
 quently in the history of Saxon England, are most com- 
 monly regarded as subordinate variations of the Keltic 
 race the Picts having made their way into the highlands 
 of Scotland from southern Britain at an early period ; 
 and the Scots having entered the region to which they 
 gave their name from Ireland, which was the original 
 
 * It is said that the peasantry of Brittany and Wales would, at the 
 present day, hare little difficulty in understanding each other. This may 
 be due in part, however, to migrations into Brittany from Wales at the 
 time of the Saxon invasion of England. 
 
 f Morris (Outlines of English Accidence, p. "7) gives the following 
 
 classification: 
 
 ( 1. Welsh. 
 
 J CYMRIC. ] 2. Cornish. 
 
 ( 3. Bas-Breton. 
 
 1. Erse Irish. 
 
 {1. Erse Irish. 
 2. Gaelic Highlanders. 
 3. Manx.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 21 
 
 Scot-land. The Scots are regarded, therefore, as of Gaelic 
 and the Picts of Kymric origin.' 
 
 -* 
 
 16. What theories have been suggested to account for 
 the dialectic and ethnologic variations of the British Kelts? 
 
 Several theories have been suggested to account for the 
 dialectic and ethnologic variations of the British Kelts, f 
 Some have supposed that Britain was originally settled by 
 Gallic and Ireland by Iberian (or Spanish) Kelts ; \ and 
 that the latter, passing to the north of Ireland and cross- 
 ing into Scotland, drove the Gallic Kelts, who first settled 
 in Britain, southward, and thus established that relation 
 of the Gael to the Kymri which we notice at the dawn of 
 authentic history. Upon this theory, the Kymri were 
 Gallic, and the Gael, Iberian Kelts ; and the differences 
 
 * Ben, the Kymric name for mountain, is of frequent occurrence in 
 Scotland. Cf. Ben Lomond, Ben Nevis. 
 
 Abcr is Kymric, inver is Gaelic, for " a confluence of waters." To the 
 east of a line drawn obliquely across Scotland from N. E. to S. W. we 
 find such names as Aberdeen, Aberfoil, etc., indicating the presence of 
 the Kymric or Pictish Kelts. To the west of that line, we find such 
 names as Inverary, Inverness, indicating the presence of the Gaelic or 
 Scottish Kelts. See Kemblc, Saxons in England, vol. ii., pp. 4 and 5. 
 
 The Picts were also called Caledonians, from the Welsh Kclyddon, 
 allied to Galatce, Kcltee. 
 
 Uoeffria, the name used by the Welsh bards to denote England and, 
 indeed, the Welsh name for England at the present day is derived from 
 the Lla-grians, a Kymric tribe who came from the valley of the Liger 
 (modern Loire) and settled in southern Britain. The Brython (Briton), 
 of similar origin and connections, settled in the north of England, to 
 which they gave their name. Sec Nicholas, Pedigree of English People, 
 pp. 66-57. 
 
 \ See Morley, Writers before Chaucer, pp. 158-159. 
 
 \ The old Irish annals lend some credence to this theory, since they 
 pretty distinctly assert the Spanish origin of the Irish Kelts ; but who 
 shall vouch for the old Irish annals ? The long and tempestuous voyage 
 which this theory imposes upon the Iberian Kelts is sufficient reason for 
 rejecting it, if any other reasonable theory can be suggested.
 
 22 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 which distinguished them had been measurably established 
 before their settlement in Britain. 
 
 A more plausible theory is, that the first Keltic in- 
 habitants of both Britain and Ireland came from the 
 neighboring coasts of Gaul, and were homogeneous in 
 race and language ; * and that when the Kelts of the 
 British Islands and those of the continent had, in the 
 lapse of centuries, assumed a different type of language 
 and culture, through the different circumstances in which 
 they were developed another immigration took place 
 from the same quarter, and thus the Kymri encroached 
 upon the Gael. 
 
 17. Characterize the Kymric Kelts, at the time of the 
 Roman invasion, with reference to arts, arms, government, 
 and culture. 
 
 It was with the Kymric, or, as Csesar calls them, the 
 Belgic Kelts that that renowned conqueror came in con- 
 tact at the time of the Eoman invasion of Britain, and he 
 found them no such " painted savages " as they are de- 
 picted in some of our school histories, f Whatever may 
 be true of the inhabitants of northern Britain, the south- 
 ern portion of the island had long held commercial inter- 
 course with the continent, possessed a gold and bronze 
 coinage of its own, \ was familiar with the mechanic arts, 
 and so formidable, by reason of its implements of war and 
 the spirit with which they were wielded, that Caesar re- 
 
 * Caesar (de Bella Galileo, B. 5, ch. 12) seems to support the latter 
 theory by the statement that " the interior of Britain is inhabited by 
 those who are recorded to have been born in the island itself, whereas 
 the sea-coast is in the possession of immigrants from the country of the 
 Belgsc, brought over for the sake either of war or plunder." 
 
 f See the evidence on this point adduced by Nicholas, ut supra, pp. 
 63-76, 86. But, per contra, see Rawlinson, Origin of Nations, p. 132 sq. 
 
 \ On the ancient British coinage, see the Monumenta Historica Bri- 
 tannica, vol. 1, p. CLI. sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 23 
 
 garded these "rude barbarians" as more than a matcli 
 for his heavy-armed infantry. * 
 
 With respect to government, Britain, during the Kel- 
 tic period, may fairly be regarded as broken up into a 
 host of petty principalities, whose swords were freely 
 turned against each other in the absence of a foreign foe. f 
 Pearson (England during the Early and Middle Ages, 
 v. 1, p. 12) says : " The clan, in the time of Caesar, seems 
 to have been the political unit, and the general state of 
 the country may be best described as a federal anarchy." 
 
 With reference to culture, the testimony of Caesar (De 
 Bella Gallico, B. 6, ch. 13), that Britain was the seat of 
 the Druidical religion, and that persons residing in Gaul 
 went thither to receive instruction in its mysteries, is 
 worthy of notice. Despite the bloody rites of the Druids, 
 the moral precepts which they inculcated would seem to 
 have been comparatively pure. They certainly recognized 
 though under the guise of transmigration the immor- 
 tality of the soul, at a time when that doctrine was mat- 
 ter of doubtful speculation to the Koman Cicero. J 
 
 18. Mention the leading names and topics in the early 
 Keltic literature of Wales. 
 
 The discussion of the early Keltic literature is some- 
 what foreign to our present purpose ; and yet, both in its 
 Welsh and Irish branches, it is worthy of that careful 
 study which it is coming to receive. 
 
 The oldest existing Welsh manuscript the Laws of 
 
 * De Bello Gallico, B. 5, ch. 12. 
 
 f The form of government is said to have been regal ; but they had 
 too many kings eight, for instance, in the little county of Kent. 
 
 \ See Lucan's Pharsalia, as cited by Nicholas, p. 85. 
 
 Matthew Arnold's Celtic Literature will, perhaps, give the general 
 student all the information that he will care to have on this point ; and 
 is a thoroughly enjoyable book.
 
 24 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 Howel Dim, or Howel the Good can not be assigned to 
 an earlier date than the beginning of the twelfth cen- 
 tury ; while the oldest existing Irish manuscript is that 
 of the Psalter of Cashel a collection of bardic legends 
 compiled, probably, toward the close of the ninth century. 
 But the descendants both of the Kymri and the Gael claim 
 a very much higher antiquity for the materials which are 
 embodied in these works. Thus, the laws of Howel Dhu 
 which are vastly in advance of the legal code of other na- 
 tions during the middle ages are assigned to 950 A. D. 
 
 With reference, more specifically, to the literature of 
 "Wales * (or the Kymric literature), the claim of Geoffrey 
 of Monmouth, that, in compiling his Latin history of 
 Britain, in the twelfth century, he made use of an earlier 
 Welsh original, is very generally conceded, f The Welsh 
 Triads a series of verses disposed in groups of three, and 
 associating together three persons, three events, or three 
 moral precepts are of uncertain date. They unquestion- 
 ably contain much modern material ; but the origin of 
 the series is ascribed to the Druids, and the antiquity of 
 many of these unrhymed triplets is as indisputable as the 
 beauty and purity by which they are characterized. J The 
 names of the Welsh bards, Aneurin, Taliesin, Merlin, and 
 
 * On the Welsh literature, see Morley, Writers before Chaucer, pp. 
 198-217, 648-659. 
 
 j- See Pearson, ut supra, vol. i., p. 621. 
 
 \ See Nicholas, ut supra, pp. 82-83. We subjoin a few specimens : 
 
 " By three things shall a person be quickly known : by what he 
 likes, by what he dislikes, and by such as like, or dislike, him." 
 
 " The three characteristics of godliness : to do justice, to love 
 mercy, and to behave humbly." 
 
 " Three things which can not be brought under discipline of strict 
 law and order : love, genius, and necessity." 
 
 " There are three actions which are divine : to succor the poor and 
 feeble, to do good to an enemy, and courageously to suffer in the 
 cause of right." 
 
 " The three foundations of wisdom : youth to learn, memory to 
 retain what is learned, and understanding to put it rightly in prac- 
 tice."
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 25 
 
 Llywarch H6n, whoso reputed works are still extant, * 
 though in manuscripts of comparatively recent origin, are 
 commonly referred to the sixth century. The collection 
 of tales called the Mdbinogion, made accessible to the 
 English public by Lady Charlotte Guest, claims an anti- 
 quity nearly as great as the bardic songs, and evidently 
 embodies very ancient material, f 
 
 The subject which chiefly enlists the sympathies of 
 the Welsh annalist and poet, from the days of Geoffrey of 
 Monmouth to the present time, is the exploits of King 
 Arthur and the Knights of the Eound Table a theme 
 that has proved especially fruitful to the mediaeval and 
 modern literature of many lands. J It has been the dream 
 of English poets, from Milton to Tennyson, to make the 
 story of King Arthur and his knights the basis of a great 
 English epic. That ideal has been best and fullest em- 
 bodied in Tennyson's Idyls of the King. But the Idyls 
 of the King despite their many beauties are no proper 
 epic. Indeed it may be questioned whether the story of 
 King Arthur and his knights possesses sufficient unity to 
 form the theme for an epic ; and, further, whether Eng- 
 lish literature had not outgrown the possibility of an epic 
 even in Milton's day. 
 
 " The three priorities of being which are three necessities of 
 Deity : power, knowledge, and love ; and from the union of these 
 three are strength and existence." 
 
 Cf. the parallelism of the Hebrew poets in Psalms 1 : 1, 19 : 4, etc. 
 
 * See Llywarch's address to his crutch in Matthew Arnold's Celtic 
 Literature, p. 155. 
 
 f See Matthew Arnold, itt supra, p. 61. 
 
 \ A good idea of these legends with which every student of English 
 should be reasonably familiar may be gained from Bulfinch's Age of 
 Chivalry and Legends of King Arthur, or Mallory's Morte d 1 Arthur 
 with which compare Morley, ut sup., pp. 562-573, and the article on Ar- 
 thur by Herbert Coleridge in Macmillan's Morte Arthur. 
 
 Milton's Paradise Lost was first planned as a drama and is really one 
 still. See Sotheby, Rambles in Elucidation of Milfoil's Autograph, p. 67 sq. 
 2
 
 19. What was the character of the early Keltic literature 
 of Ireland ; and what was the period of Ireland's greatest 
 literary glory ? 
 
 With reference to the early Keltic literature of Ire- 
 land,* it may be remarked that the Irish claim to have 
 had a succession of bards, similar to those of Wales, from 
 the earliest settlement of the island ; and produce frag- 
 ments of their songs, which are assigned to the fifth cen- 
 tury after Christ. They possess, also, a series of annals 
 which are of slight historic value, f but of great interest 
 to the student of language of which the oldest are those 
 of Tigernach, who lived in the latter part of the eleventh 
 century. The Keltic literature of Ireland would seem to 
 possess less power and brilliancy than that of Wales. It 
 was certainly less fortunate in its choice of themes, and 
 its influence upon the literature of succeeding ages is less 
 distinctly marked. The period of Ireland's literary glory 
 dates from her reception of Christianity, and is character- 
 ized by the use of the Latin rather than the Keltic tongue. 
 From the middle of the fifth century to the close of the 
 ninth, the influence of Ireland in the European world of 
 
 * See Morley, ut sup., pp. 170-192. 
 
 f Latham, Ethnology of British Islands, p. 132 sq., says: "Whoever 
 reads Dr. Prichard's account of the contents of the earliest [Irish] chroni- 
 cles, consisting, among other matters, of an antediluvian Caesar ; a land- 
 ing of Partholanus, with his wife Ealga, on the coast of Connemara, 12 
 years after the deluge and on the 14th of May ; the colony of the Nie- 
 midh, descendants of Gog and Magog ; the Fir-Bolg from Thrace ; the 
 Tuatha de Danann from Athens ; and, above all, the famous Milesians, 
 among whom was Niall, the intimate of Moses and Aaron, and the hus- 
 band of Scota the daughter of Pharaoh, will soon satisfy himself that, 
 with the exception of a little weight which may possibly be due to the 
 prominence which the Spanish peninsula takes in the several legends, 
 the whole mass is so utterly barren in historical results that criticism 
 would be misplaced." 
 
 Craik, Eng. Lit. and Lang,, v. 1, p, 35, takes a much more favorable 
 view of the Irish chronicles, however.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 27 
 
 letters was very great, and the epithet "Erigena" en- 
 titled a scholar to distinction throughout Christendom. 
 During this troubled period of English history, the schol- 
 ars of England found a peaceful asylum in the sister isle, 
 and from enlightened Ireland missionaries were sent forth 
 to civilize and christianize the rude hordes of compara- 
 tively barbarous Britain.* 
 
 20. In what relation do the Keltic race and literature 
 stand to our modern English, according to M or ley and 
 Arnold? 
 
 We have dwelt at considerable length upon the Keltic 
 race, because of the increasing tendency to recognize the 
 Kelts as essentially modifying the character, and influ- 
 encing the literature, if not the language, of the compo- 
 site people who now occupy Great Britain. Matthew 
 Arnold f quotes Prof. Morley as expressing his own opin- 
 ion when he says : " The main current of English can 
 not be divorced from the lively Keltic wit in which it has 
 one of its sources. The Kelts do not form an utterly dis- 
 tinct part of our mixed population. But for early, fre- 
 quent, and various contact with the race that, in its half- 
 barbarous days, invented Ossian's dialogues with Saint 
 Patrick, J and that quickened, afterward, the Northmen's 
 blood in France, Germanic England would not have pro- 
 duced a Shakspere." 
 
 21. State the circumstances respecting the invasion of 
 Britain by Julius Csesar. 
 
 With reference to the Roman occupation of Britain I 
 
 * See Bedc, Ecclesiastical History, v. 3, p. 28. 
 
 f Celtic Literature, p. 96. 
 
 \ Not McPherson's Ossian ; but an Ossian celebrated in certain Irish 
 fragments of doubtful antiquity. See McPherson's dissertation on the 
 poems of Ossian.
 
 28 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 shall be more brief,* for the permanent influence of that 
 occupation was comparatively slight. The conquest of 
 Britain was first undertaken, in the autumn of 55 B. C., 
 by Julius Caesar, who desired, as he himself tells us, to 
 ascertain the strength of the Britons, the physical condi- 
 tion of the country, and its methods of warfare respect- 
 ing which he soon received abundant information. His 
 probable motive was, to chastise the British Kelts for the 
 assistance which they had frequently rendered to their 
 Gallic kinsmen. Meeting with scanty success, Caesar 
 speedily returned to Gaul and made more extensive prepa- 
 rations for a renewed attack in the spring of 54. Sailing 
 from Itium which Louis Napoleon identifies with the 
 modern Boulogne with 700 transports and 30,000 heavy- 
 armed infantry, he landed on the shore of Kent and en- 
 countered the united British tribes under Cassivelaunus, 
 or Caswallon. After a short but severe campaign, south- 
 ern Britain was reduced to nominal subjection, and Caesar, 
 taking hostages from the principal tribes, returned, in the 
 summer of 54, to Gaul, leaving no troops behind him. f 
 
 22 When was the conquest of Britain systematically 
 undertaken by Rome ; and when and how accomplished ? 
 
 Not until A. D. 43, when Claudius sent an immense 
 force to Britain, was the conquest of the island resolutely 
 and persistently undertaken ; and not until the battle of 
 the Grampian Hills was gained by Agricola, J A. D. 84, 
 can the conquest be regarded as complete. The names of 
 
 * Freeman's Old English History will adequately fill the historical 
 gaps in the mere sketch which I give. Every student should, if possible, 
 own it. 
 
 f The pretext for this sudden and complete withdrawal was a rising 
 of the Gallic Kelts, who were, indeed, likely enough to rise in support of 
 their British kinsmen. It is evident, however, that Caesar's invasion was 
 not a success. 
 
 \ On all this period, consult the Agricola of Tacitus.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 29 
 
 Caractacus (or Caradoc) and Boadicca, the warrior-queen 
 of the Britons, are identified with this period of valiant 
 opposition to the Roman invader in southern Britain. In 
 the north, the Romans encountered such fierce and pro- 
 tracted resistance that, during their entire occupation of 
 Britain, they relied as much on huge ramparts, drawn 
 across the island from shore to shore, as upon the bravery 
 of their legions, to secure their southern conquests against 
 Caledonian invaders. Traces of the Roman Wall are still 
 distinctly visible near Newcastle on the Tyne.* 
 
 23. When, and why, did the Romans leave Britain; 
 and what was the condition of the island during their 
 occupancy ? 
 
 In 412 A. D. two years after the Goths, under Alaric, 
 had sacked Rome the Roman legions were withdrawn 
 from Britain, having work to occupy them nearer home. 
 
 For a period, then, of more than 300 years, the Ro- 
 mans held peaceful possession of southern Britain ; and, 
 during that period, the land was dotted with bridges, 
 villas, baths, and theatres, and permeated by the inevita- 
 ble net-work of Roman roads, f Britain was, during this 
 
 * When " the Roman wall " is mentioned, we must think of some one 
 of the following structures : 
 
 1. A line of forts built by Agricola, A. D. 81, from the Forth to the 
 Clyde. 
 
 2. A wall from the Tyne to the Solway, built at the time of Hadrian's 
 visit, A. D. 121. 
 
 3. The rampart of Antoninus which followed Agricola's line of forts 
 built A. D. 140. 
 
 4. The rampart of Severus following substantially the same course 
 as that of Hadrian built A. D. 209. 
 
 There was, for many years, a Roman wall ; there were Roman walls 
 built in two different places ; Roman walls were thrice built which facts 
 may serve to reconcile the differing statements of historians. 
 
 f See Monumenta Historica Sritannica, vol. i., for map which shows 
 the system of roads.
 
 30 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 period, a favorite residence of the Roman emperors. Con- 
 stantino the Great is said not only to have been born 
 there, but to have been of British descent on the side of 
 his mother, Helena. 
 
 24. What was the permanent influence of the Roman 
 occupation ? 
 
 Yet the permanent influence of the Roman occupation 
 upon the character and culture of the inhabitants of 
 Britain was very slight so slight as to have been well- 
 nigh obliterated by the Saxon occupation of the island. 
 The only traces of the Latin language which are, indu- 
 bitably, to be referred to this period are to be found in 
 the terminations -coin (colonia) and -caster or -Chester 
 (castrum) in names of towns, and in the English "street" 
 from the Latin strata.* Prichard, whose authority on 
 such a point must be regarded as almost beyond question, 
 
 * E. g. Lincoln (Lindi colonia) ; Doncastcr, Dorchester, etc. The 
 Latin strata is preserved in the name " Watling Street," which is as old 
 as the Roman occupation. 
 
 Earle, Philology of the English Tongue, p. 18, regards as traces of the 
 Roman occupation the termination -port (Lat. porta) and the nouns 
 " wall " (Lat. vallum] and " mile " (Lat. millia). 
 
 Pearson, England during Early and Middle Ages, v. 1, p. 53 sq., be- 
 lieves that the centers of population were pretty thoroughly Latinized 
 during the period of Roman occupation ; while the rural districts were 
 not materially affected. He gives (p. 651) a list of 114 Anglo-Saxon 
 words which are of Latin origin. Some of these, however, are not neces- 
 sarily Latin derivatives. Others are of later introduction than the period 
 of Roman occupation. Pearson concedes (p. 54) that, during this period, 
 " the natives mostly retained their ancient tongue ; " and accounts for the 
 scanty linguistic traces of the occupation by the " stubborn nationality " 
 of the Britons, the speedy irruption of the Saxons, and the fact that the 
 Roman soldiers who garrisoned Britain had been drafted out of every 
 nation. 
 
 On the condition of Britain under the Romans, see Kemble, Saxons 
 in England, v. 2, p. 262 sq. On the alleged permanence of Roman civili- 
 zation in Britain, see E. A. Freeman in Macmillan's Magazine for 1870.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 31 
 
 says : "In Britain, the native idiom was nowhere super- 
 seded by the Roman " a fact which would be inexplica- 
 ble did we not know that the percentage of Latin tongues 
 among the 50,000 Eoman soldiers who garrisoned Britain 
 was very small, many of the legions having been recruited 
 in Gaul. 
 
 25. Indicate the periods which have been marked by 
 the introduction of Latin words to the English language. 
 
 Of the many Latin words which exist to-day on the 
 soil of Britain, some (mostly relating to the church and 
 its observances) * were introduced by Latin missionaries 
 during the Anglo-Saxon period A. D. 600 sq. A still 
 larger number have been derived directly from classical 
 sources since the revival of learning A. D. 1450 sq. f 
 The great body of our Latin derivatives came to us, how- 
 ever, through the French, at about the time of the Nor- 
 man conquest A. D. 950-1200. J 
 
 The Latin introduced during the Eoman occupation 
 is sometimes called "Latin of the first period"; that 
 introduced by the Romish missionaries, "Latin of the 
 second period " ; that introduced at the Norman conquest, 
 
 * Such words as bisceop, a bishop ; mynster, a minster ; practician, 
 to preach. Cf. Angus, Handbook of the English Tongue, p. 13. 
 f See Angus, p. 14. 
 
 \ We have, in many instances, words directly derived from a Latin 
 root, and words derived from the same root indirectly, through the Xor- 
 man-French. E. g. 
 
 Latin. Directly from Lat. Through Norm. Fr. 
 
 Captivus, captive, caitiff. 
 
 Factum, fact, feat. 
 
 Factio, faction, fashion. 
 
 Fragilis, fragile, frail. 
 
 Legalis, legal, loyal. 
 
 Oratio, oration, orison. 
 
 Securus, secure, sure. 
 
 Tractus, tract, trait. 
 
 See Morris, Outlines of Eng. Accidence, p. 32.
 
 32 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 " Latin of the third period " ; that introduced by modern 
 classical study, " Latin of the fourth period." 
 
 26. What event immediately followed the withdrawal 
 of the Romans from Britain ; and what circumstances 
 rendered this event possible ? 
 
 Immediately after the withdrawal of the Roman le- 
 gions, the Scots and- Picts (or Caledonians), breaking 
 through the wall which had been erected in the time of 
 Severus, overran and devastated southern Britain, whose 
 inhabitants dispirited by long oppression, enfeebled by 
 the enrolment of their sons in Roman legions serving on 
 the continent, and destitute alike of military and civic 
 organization were in no condition to make head against 
 the fierce assaults of their barbarous kinsmen.* Aid was, 
 accordingly, sought from Rome, and again and again ren- 
 dered, during a period of 15 years, despite the troubles 
 with which Rome herself was beset. 
 
 27. What circumstances led to the Saxon occupation 
 of Britain; what is the date assigned to the beginning 
 of this occupation ; and what evidence is there that the 
 Saxons had previously made incursions into Britain ? 
 
 After the final withdrawal of the Romans, the country 
 was distracted with internal dissensions and still subject 
 to hostile incursions from the north. It is not at all un- 
 likely, therefore, that there is truth in the tradition which 
 tells us that, in 449 A. D., Vortigern, king of southern 
 Britain, sought the aid of the Saxons to help him assert 
 his claims to the Pendragonship and repress Caledonian 
 raids. The distracted condition of a country so wealthy 
 and fertile was in itself, however, a sufficient invitation to 
 the hardy and adventurous Teuton, who, even during the 
 Roman occupation of Britain, had made himself the tem- 
 
 * See Bcde, Ecclesiastical Hist, of Britain, B. 1, ch. xii, xiii.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 33 
 
 porary master of London, and who, as early as 280 A. D., 
 had, by his predatory incursions, fixed the name of Littus 
 Saxonicum upon the south-eastern coast of Britain.* 
 
 Whether with or without invitation, it is indisputable 
 that, at about the middle of the fifth century, the Saxons 
 began to flock in upon Britain, to borrow the imagery of 
 the old chronicles, " like swarms of beea." 
 
 28. Mention the different invasions of Britain recorded 
 by the Saxon Chronicle. 
 
 The Saxon Chronicle records seven distinct Teutonic 
 invasions of Britain, f 
 
 1. That of Hengist and Horsa, who came over, in re- 
 sponse to the invitation of Vortigern, in 449, at the head 
 of a party of Jutes, and, after 20 years of hard fighting, 
 established the kingdom of Kent. 
 
 2. That of Ella, who, in 477, landed with a party of 
 Frisians and established the kingdom of Sussex (South- 
 Saxons). 
 
 3. That of Cerdic, who, in 495, at the head of a band 
 of Saxons, established himself in Wessex (West-Saxons). 
 
 4. That of Ercenwine, who landed in 530, with a band 
 of Saxon followers, and founded the kingdom of Essex 
 (East-Saxons). 
 
 5. That of a party of Angles, who, in 540, established 
 the kingdom of Bast Anglia. 
 
 6. That of Ida, who, with a party of Angles, gained a 
 footing in the north of Britain, between the Tweed and 
 
 * In the reign of Diocletian (A. D. 290) Mamertinus, in a panegyric 
 on the emperor's colleague Maximian, refers to the occupation of the city 
 of London by the Franks. See Latham, ut sup., p. 96. 
 
 In 286 A. D., Carausius was appointed Comes Liltoris Sazonici, to 
 defend the south-eastern portion of Britain from the incursions of Saxon 
 pirates. 
 
 f See Nicholas, ut sup., p. 114 sq. for more detailed statement. See, 
 also, Bonn's edition of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
 
 34 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 the Forth, in 547, and established the kingdom of "North- 
 Humber-land. " Northumberland was ultimately divided 
 into two provinces Bernicia to the north, and Deira to 
 the south. Hence the discrepancy between the historians, 
 some of whom speak of " the Saxon heptarchy ;" others 
 of " the Saxon octarchy."* 
 
 7. A third invasion by the Angles, about 585, which 
 encroached upon the west of England and resulted in the 
 establishment of the kingdom of Mercia. 
 
 29. What was the duration, and character, of the period 
 of Saxon settlement and Saxon consolidation, according to 
 the Chronicle ? 
 
 It will be seen that these statements make the Saxon 
 invasion cover a period of 136 years, which is represented, 
 by the Saxon Chronicle, as a period of devastating war- 
 fare against the Keltic tribes. Nearly 300 years more, 
 marked by fierce dissensions among the Saxons them- 
 selves and especially between the states of Mercia and 
 "Wessex, both of which aspired to the supremacy were 
 required, before the various races and dialects of the in- 
 vaders were consolidated under Egbert, who became king 
 of Wessex in 800 A. D., the same year that Charlemagne 
 was crowned emperor of the West. Egbert, who had 
 spent 14 years at the court of Charlemagne, was crowned 
 as King of England in 827. f 
 
 * Some authorities state that Bernicia was founded by Ida in 547, and 
 Deira by Ella in 559. Palgrave insists that the term " heptarchy," as 
 applied to the Anglo-Saxon states, is a misnomer ; that there were always 
 more than seven states ; and that there was no substantial consolidation 
 till after the Norman conquest. 
 
 f Pearson says (England during the Early and Middle Ages, v. 1, p. 
 136): " The war between the Angles and Saxons [that is, between Mer- 
 cia and Wessex], for the sovereignty of England, is as clearly marked 
 and as important as the earlier war of the two united races against the 
 Britons. It was less bitter and bloody. It was not envenomed by the con- 
 tempt of a strong for a weak race. In its beginning, it was scarcely more
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 35 
 
 Into the struggles of this period which Milton culled 
 " the battles of choughs and crows " we do not care to 
 enter minutely ; nor is it necessary, since our purpose is 
 literary rather than historical. They will be found ad- 
 mirably epitomized in Green's Short History of the Eng- 
 lish People, and more minutely discussed in Freeman's 
 Old English History. 
 
 30. What is the nature of the Saxon Chronicle, and 
 what its credibility with reference to the events of this 
 period ? 
 
 In our statements respecting the Saxon invasion of 
 Britain, we have followed, thus far, the " Saxon Chroni- 
 cle " a historical record which was kept, in substantially 
 the same form, in several different monasteries during the 
 Anglo-Saxon period. But the Chronicle though pro- 
 fessedly a contemporaneous record of events was prob- 
 ably begun in the reign of Alfred, toward the close of the 
 ninth century,* and derived its information, respecting 
 
 than the trial of strength which would certainly have taken place had 
 all the invading people been of one stem. But it lasted till the coming 
 of the Danes ; it explains why the Danes were able to plant themselves, 
 with a hearty acceptance from the people of the Anglian districts ; it is 
 the secret of the weakness of England under every sovereign, till the 
 strong Norman yoke and the superimposed Xorman nobility crushed 
 Angle and Dane and Saxon into Englishmen." 
 
 * Alfred was born A. D. 849 and died 901. "The earliest known MS. 
 of the " Saxon Chronicle " is in the library of Corpus Christi College, 
 Cambridge. It is written to 891 A. D. in the same hand, and is evidently 
 not later than the tenth century. It is continued in Anglo-Saxon to 1070 
 in Latin to 1075. The dialect is Mercian. Other MSS. exist in the 
 dialect of Wessex. See Lappenberg, Hist. A. 8. Kings, v. 1, p. xxxix. sq. 
 
 On the worthlessness of the Chronicle (historically considered) see 
 Marsh, Origin and Hist, of Eng. Lang., p. 103 ; or, indeed, read the 
 Chronicle, in an annotated edition, for yourself. Freeman, however, Old 
 Eng. Hist., p. 32, thinks that every Englishman should prize the Saxon 
 Chronicle next to the Bible and Homer !
 
 36 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 the events which we are now considering, from Bede's 
 Ecclesiastical History of Britain, written in Latin about 
 150 years after the last of the Saxon invasions.* The 
 priests who compiled the Chronicle merely translated 
 Bede's Latin into Anglo-Saxon and threw the material 
 in a blundering fashion out of a connected narrative into 
 the form of annals, to give completeness to the series of 
 annals which Alfred had projected. The Saxon Chroni- 
 cle is not, therefore, a contemporary record of events. 
 It was begun, in all probability, four centuries after the 
 date which it assigns to the landing of Hengist and Horsa. 
 There is room, therefore, for the question which we are 
 about to raise : what is the truth concerning the Saxon 
 invasion of Britain ? f 
 
 31. Give a detailed classification of the Teutonic branch 
 of the Indo-European family of languages. 
 
 Before attempting to answer this question, let us recur 
 to the Teutonic branch of the Indo-European family of 
 languages and divide it into : 
 
 A. THE GERMANIC GROUP, embracing : 
 
 1. The McBso-GotldCy spoken on the lower Danube, 
 and represented by the Gospels as translated by Ulfilas, 
 who died 388 A. D. This translation is the oldest literary 
 monument of the Teutonic tongue. J 
 
 2. The Low German, or Saxon, which is the progenitor 
 of the modern Dutch including the Flemish. Its earli- 
 est literary representative is the Heliand (or Saviour, cf. 
 
 * Bede died 735. A comparison of the Chronicle with Bede's history 
 is sufficient proof of this assertion. 
 
 f Pearson, ut supra, v. 1, p. 83, insists that the Saxon and Keltic 
 traditions respecting the conquest are equally untrustworthy. 
 
 \ See Bosworth, Anglo-Saxon Gospels. Cf. article on Ulfilas in Lit- 
 tell's Living Age for May, 1878.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 
 
 37 
 
 Germ. Ileiland) a poem ascribed by some to the fifth 
 century, but, probably, of much later origin. 
 
 3. The Frisic, which is still a spoken language. 
 
 4. The Old High German, from which has sprung the 
 German of to-day. 
 
 B. THE SCANDINAVIAN GROUP,* embracing : 
 
 1. The Icelandic. 
 
 2. The Swedish. 
 
 3. The Danish, including the Norse, f 
 
 The question that now demands our attention is : 
 which of the races and languages just indicated gave rise 
 to the Anglo-Saxon race and language ; and, through the 
 Anglo-Saxon, determined the essential character of the 
 English people and the English speech ? 
 
 * The Scandinavian languages are characterized by a post-positive 
 article. Thus, in Danish or Swedish, we have : 
 
 Masc. en skov, a wood ; skoven, the wood. 
 Fern, et trae, a tree ; tracet, the tree. 
 
 In these languages, there is, also, a distinct form for the passive voice, 
 which is indicated by adding to the active. See Earle, Philology of the 
 English Tongue, pp. 7-8. This " middle " form is the result of combining 
 sik = self with the active. See Morris, Outlines of English Accidence, 
 p. 6. 
 
 \ Dr. Morris, Outlines of English Accidence, pp. 4-5, gives the fol- 
 lowing classification of these languages : 
 
 1. Macso-Gothic. 
 
 2. Frisian. 
 I. Low GERMAN. -{ 3. Dutch. 
 
 4. Flemish. 
 
 5. Old Saxon. 
 
 TEUTONIC. 
 
 II. SCANDINAVIAN. 
 
 III. HIGH GERMAN. 
 
 1. Icelandic. 
 
 2. Norwegian. 
 
 3. Swedish. 
 
 4. Danish. 
 
 1. Old. 700-1100. 
 
 2. Middle. 1100-1500. 
 
 3. New. 1500-1878.
 
 38 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 32. What credibility attaches to the statements of the 
 Saxon Chronicle with reference to centres of immigration ; 
 with reference to the time when Saxon immigration began ? 
 
 The Saxon Chronicle is, doubtless, correct in its enu- 
 meration of the great centers of Saxon immigration ; for 
 at the time when Bede, whom the Chronicle follows, 
 wrote, the kingdoms which subsequently made up " the 
 Saxon Heptarchy" were not yet consolidated, but clus- 
 tered about the points where they were originally planted 
 on the soil of Britain. 
 
 The Chronicle is, undoubtedly, in error, however, in 
 fixing so definite and so late a date for the first Saxon in- 
 vasion. It is hardly to be believed that so adventurous 
 a people as the Saxons would have left so rich a country 
 as Britain undisturbed till the middle of the fifth century 
 after Christ ; and we have already adduced evidence to 
 show that such was not the case.* 
 
 Probably from the very beginning of the Christian era 
 the coasts of Britain had been subject to occasional incur- 
 sions from the neighboring Saxon tribes. " The Saxon 
 Chronicle " simply fixes and that approximately the 
 period when they began to aspire to permanent occu- 
 pation. 
 
 33. What was the real nature of the Saxon " invasion ? " 
 
 We are likely, also, to gain not certainly from the 
 " Saxon Chronicle " itself, f but from the interpretations 
 put upon it a wrong impression respecting the nature 
 and magnitude of the various Saxon invasions of Britain. 
 Indeed, the term "invasion" is, in itself, sufficient to 
 mislead us. The " invaders " came not in martial array 
 
 * See Topic 2*7. Cf. Proceedings of I^ndon Philological Society, vol. 
 6, p. 13. 
 
 f The " Chronicle " tells us that Ilengist and Horsa came with three 
 ships ; Ella with the same number ; Cerdic with five.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 39 
 
 with numerous and well-ordered hosts. There was, in- 
 deed, no concerted movement of the Saxon tribes toward 
 the west no such movement as there has been of the 
 Irish and Germans toward America within the present 
 century. Attracted by the fertility and defenseless con- 
 dition of Britain, two or three shiploads of Saxon adven- 
 turers (and forty or fifty men was a full complement for 
 a Saxon galley) landed and intrenched themselves. These 
 served as a nucleus for further immigrations, and in the 
 lapse of time gradually encroaching upon the Keltic 
 inhabitants of the island the feeble settlement grew into 
 a "kingdom." Other such settlements followed; and 
 " the Saxon Heptarchy" was the result. 
 
 34, What exception may be taken to the Chronicle's im- 
 plied statement that the first Teutonic invaders of Britain 
 were "Jutes"? 
 
 The Saxon Chronicle can not be regarded as trust- 
 worthy with reference to the origin of the people that 
 supplanted the Kelts in Britain. The first settlement, 
 according to the Chronicle, was made by a party of Jutes * 
 which word is supposed to mean settlers from northern 
 Denmark and of the Scandinavian stock. 
 
 But it is highly improbable that the first Teutonic set- 
 tlement of Britain should come from so remote a source ; 
 and equally improbable that settlers from Jutland the 
 whole of Britain lying open to their choice should land 
 so far south as Kent. 
 
 If the first Teutonic settlers of Britain did come from 
 Jutland, they could hardly have been of Scandinavian 
 stock ; for the topographical nomenclature of southern 
 
 * This fact is necessarily implied, rather than asserted, in the ac- 
 cepted text of the Chronicle. Per contra, tradition makes Hengist a 
 Frisian ; and one manuscript of the Chronicle asserts that he landed 
 with a party of Angles.
 
 40 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 Britain shows no traces of Scandinavian occupation, and 
 no race can long occupy a land without leaving traces of 
 the fact in the names of rivers, mountains, lakes, and 
 towns.* 
 
 Moreover, the Chronicle itself asserts that the year 
 787 was the first year when ships of Danish men sought 
 the land of the English nation ; f and in Alfred's Anglo- 
 Saxon translation of the passage in Bede, which the 
 Chronicle manifestly follows,}; the word Jutas is trans- 
 lated by Geatas (or Goths) a generic term which is else- 
 where applied to Alfred himself, who was manifestly not a 
 Dane. 
 
 We are, therefore, warranted in assuming that the 
 Jutes, in the modern acceptation of that term that is, 
 people from northern Denmark of the Scandinavian 
 stock had nothing to do with the Saxon settlement of 
 Britain. We do not regard the Saxon Chronicle as con- 
 clusive authority on any point in the early history of 
 Britain least of all on an ethnological question ; and by 
 stating that Hengist and Horsa landed at the head of a 
 party of "Jutes," it may have meant, in a broad and 
 general sense, a party of Goths or Teutons. 
 
 * Sec Mrs. Sigourney's poem, beginning: 
 
 " Grant that they all have passed away, 
 
 That noble race and brave ; 
 That their light canoes have vanished 
 From off your crested wave." 
 
 Worsale, Danes and Norwegians in England, p. 23, remarks on the scanty 
 traces left by the Danes in southern England ; though he finds (p. 13), on 
 the sea-coast, some Danish names ; e. g. : Sandwich, Greenwich, Sheer- 
 ness, Dungeness. On Danish names of places in middle and northern 
 England, see the same author, p. 66 sq. 
 
 f Cf. Bonn's ed., p. 341. This statement like the statement of the 
 Chronicle with reference to the beginning of the Saxon invasion is open 
 to serious question. 
 
 \ See Latham, Ethnoloyy of the British Islands, p. 235 sq., for a very 
 interesting discussion of this passage in all its bearings.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 41 
 
 35. What was the continental abode of the " Angles " ; 
 what part did they play in the settlement of Britain ; and 
 how did they come to give a name to the country? 
 
 The fifth, sixth and seventh settlements of Britain, 
 according to the Chronicle, were made by the Angles a 
 tribe whose habitat on the continent is fixed in the east- 
 ern part of the Danish peninsula, covering a barren, 
 marshy waste about twenty miles square. It is not prob- 
 able that any considerable number of the Teutonic in- 
 vaders of Britain were derived from this locality ; though 
 the Anglian settlers confessedly gave the name of Angle- 
 land, or England, to the Island. 
 
 Some have supposed that the name "Angles" had 
 been extended, from the little tribe between the Schlei 
 and Flensburg, to the entire Saxon race, before its occu- 
 pation of Britain ; * and thus account for the alleged 
 fact that Egbert of Wessex himself a Saxon prince 
 gave to the consolidated kingdoms of the heptarchy the 
 title of Angle-land. 
 
 It has, indeed, been claimed f that the name of Sax- 
 on \ was first given to the Anglian invaders of Britain by 
 the Kymric Kelts, to whom the invaders in turn gave 
 the name of Weales, or strangers ; but the immediate ac- 
 
 * It is by no means infrequent that the name of a tribe, insignificant 
 in number but energetic in character, is thus extended to the entire peo- 
 ple of which it forms a part. Cf. the Greek "Argives," the American 
 " Yankees," etc. 
 
 Nicholas thinks that the name Angle-land, as applied to Britain, may 
 perhaps be explained by the prominence given to East Anglia, on the 
 continent, through its early reception of Christianity. 
 
 That East Anglia played a prominent and influential part in Anglo- 
 Saxon history can not be questioned. Sec Pearson, ut supra, v. i., pp. 
 108, 136, and Oliphant, Sources of Standard English, throughout. 
 
 f- Cf. Latham, ut supra, p. 193. 
 
 \ From seax, a sword ; according to others, from sass, a planter, set- 
 tler. Both are Teutonic words.
 
 43 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 ceptance, by the invaders, of the terms Sussex, Wessex, 
 and Essex to denote the kingdoms which they founded is 
 hardly consistent with this theory. 
 
 36. Is it certain that we are to make a discrimination 
 between the "Angles" and the "Saxons"? 
 
 The phrase " Anglo-Saxon " naturally suggests a com- 
 bination of two different races (Of. Norman - French ; 
 Anglo-Norman) ; but the conclusion to which Latham 
 comes, after a careful examination of the matter under 
 discussion, is that no distinction need be drawn between 
 the Angles and the Saxons, on the ground of the differ- 
 ence in names. "If," he remarks, "the Saxons of An- 
 glo-Saxon England were other than Angles under a differ- 
 ent name, they were North Frisians." * 
 
 37. What degree of prominence does the Saxon Chronicle 
 assign to the "Frisians" with reference to the settlement 
 of Britain; and what prominence do they probably de- 
 serve ? 
 
 It will be remembered that the Saxon Chronicle as- 
 cribes a Frisian origin to the second Teutonic invasion of 
 Britain, and to that alone. It is indisputable, however, 
 that the Frisian islands which lie along the coast of Schles- 
 wig and the Frisian settlements on the main-land, near 
 the Zuyder Zee, contributed very largely to the early 
 Saxon settlement of Britain. Historic evidence to this 
 effect is not wanting ; f but the most striking proof is 
 found in the marked affinity that exists between our mod- 
 ern English and the Frisic of to-day an affinity that was 
 still more marked between the old Frisic and the Anglo- 
 
 * Ethnology of British Islands, p. 185. Cf. Donaldson, in the Cam- 
 bridge Essays, vol. ii. 
 
 f Cf. Latham, ut supra, p. 210 sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 43 
 
 Saxon.* A careful linguistic comparison must convince 
 us that the affinity between the Frisians and the Anglo- 
 Saxons was very great ; and that the former must have 
 played a much larger part in the Teutonic settlement of 
 Britain than is commonly assigned them. 
 
 38. Give a summary of the facts which may be confident- 
 ly accepted with reference to the Teutonic settlement of 
 Britain. 
 
 We have, perhaps, seen reason to believe that Teutonic 
 interference in the affairs of Britain did not begin at so 
 definite and so late a period as that assigned by the 
 " Saxon Chronicle ; " and that the time-honored division 
 of the settlers into "Angles, Saxons, and Jutes" (i. e. 
 Danes) is open to serious question. It may, we think, be 
 'regarded as certain : 
 
 * See Morley, Writers before Chaucer, p. 228 ; Transactions of Lon- 
 don Philological Society, 1856-1858 ; Schele DC Vere, Studies in English, 
 p. 93 sq. 
 
 I give, from Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. Ixxi., a specimen 
 of the " Country-Frisic " of 1834, together with the original stanza (by 
 the Countess of Blessington) from which it was translated : 
 
 Dead ! hwat bist dou " Death ! what beest thou 
 
 Tu hwaem alien buwgje, To whom all bow, 
 
 Fen de scepterde kening ta dc slawe ? From the sceptered king to the slave? 
 De laetste, best fr6on [0. F.friond] The last, best friend, 
 Om uws soargen to eingjen, Our cares to end, 
 
 Dyn gebiet is yn 't graef. Thine empire is in the grave." 
 
 The student will notice that the similarity between the Frisic and the 
 English constructions is even more striking than that between the Frisic 
 and the English words. 
 
 Barnes, Early England and the Saxon English, p. 141 sq., gives some 
 equally striking illustrations of the similarity between the English and 
 the Frisic. I give a few specimens : 
 
 Dat swyard hungt bai 'e sidd. The sword hung by the side. 
 
 God as bai de. God is by thee. 
 
 He gongt bai diii an nagt. He goes by day and night. 
 
 En staurk unner 'e hammel [Ger. Him-mcT] wiyt sin tid. 
 
 A stork under the heaven wita (knows) his tiuic.
 
 44 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 1. That the settlement of Britain was made by no 
 single Teutonic tribe. Such a tribal movement must 
 have left traces on the continent which we do not find ; 
 for you can not uplift a sturdy tree without leaving a gap 
 in the landscape. Further, the earliest existing Anglo- 
 Saxon manuscript, which belongs to a period three hun- 
 dred years after the settlement of Britain by the Teutons, 
 and two hundred years after their acceptance of Chris- 
 tianity had tended to unify the settlers, appears, accord- 
 ing to Marsh, * heterogeneous, like a fusion of Low Ger- 
 man elements with smaller portions of High German, 
 Scandinavian, and even Keltic and Sclavonic. Hence we 
 may rest assured of the fact to which even the Saxon 
 Chronicle bears witness that the Teutonic settlers of 
 Britain were of diverse, though closely related, race and 
 language. 
 
 2. The Anglo-Saxon language has the strongest affin- 
 ity with the Frisian and the Saxon (or Low German) 
 dialects of the Teutonic speech. Hence we may infer 
 that the Teutonic colonists of Britain came from some- 
 where in the immediate vicinity of the North Sea a re- 
 gion which was then filled with fragments of Germanic 
 tribes which had fled from Eoman oppression to the coast, 
 along the line of the Elbe and the Weser. This coast was 
 then unprotected by dikes, and better fitted than at the 
 present day to foster and perpetuate diversity of races and 
 dialects. Yet even now, according to Marsh, f "Every 
 hour of travel, as we advance from the Ehine to the Eider, 
 brings us to a new vernacular." 
 
 It is, therefore, exceedingly difficult to determine the 
 precise sources of Teutonic settlement in Britain. They 
 were probably very numerous and very diverse. We nrnst 
 rest content with a general reference of our Anglo-Saxon 
 
 * Origin and History of Eng. Lang., p. 55. 
 f Origin and History, pp. 50, 51.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 45 
 
 ancestors to the Low German branch of the Teutonic 
 family. " When we speak of a conquest by Anglo-Sax- 
 ons," says Schele Do Vere,* " we mean by it a gradual 
 settlement of the British isles by a number of successive 
 and totally distinct bodies [of invaders from Germany], 
 representing, in unknown proportions, all the races and 
 tongues which are found between the Elbe and the Eider, 
 with contributions from the other tribes dwelling on the 
 Atlantic and the Baltic." 
 
 3. One point should distinctly be borne in mind, which 
 is well stated by Professor Morley,f namely : "That the 
 blood-alliance of England is rather with those Dutchmen 
 who, in Elizabeth's day, fought the battle of civil and re- 
 ligious liberty upon the narrow battle-ground of their 
 own soil, against the tyranny of Spain, than with the 
 Dane or the German." 
 
 39. What is the popular impression respecting the fate 
 of the Kelts at the time of the Saxon occupation; and 
 what reasons are there for regarding this impression as 
 incorrect ? 
 
 We have seen that, at the close of the Roman oc- 
 cupation of Britain, the Keltic race existed, and the 
 Keltic language was spoken, in one form or another, 
 throughout the British islands. Four hundred years 
 after the last of the Roman troops had left the shores of 
 Britain, the Saxons had become as absolute masters of 
 that portion which is now called England as the Ro- 
 mans had ever been. What, meanwhile, had become of 
 the Kelts ? 
 
 The popular impression has been that they wasted 
 away before the persistent incursions of the Saxon iu- 
 
 * Studies in English, p. 18. 
 
 f Writers before Chaucer, p. 6. Cf . Craik, Eng. Lit, and Lang., v. i, 
 p. 49.
 
 46 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 vaders ; and that the remnants of the race were swept 
 into the barren fastnesses of Wales and Cornwall, or 
 driven across the sea into Armorica. Their fate has often 
 been compared to that of the North American Indians, 
 when brought in contact with a race of higher civiliza- 
 tion and more generous activity. But the point on which 
 this comparison turns is not well taken. The tendency, 
 doubtless, is for an uncivilized people, conquered by a 
 civilized people, to waste away. But, in all probability, 
 the civilization of the Kymric Kelt, at the time of the 
 Teutonic settlement of Britain, was not inferior to that 
 of the Saxon. The latter may have had a written lan- 
 guage, which the Kelts owing to the esoteric nature 
 of their culture lacked ; and this fact would account 
 for the ultimate supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon lan- 
 guage, since, when two languages come in conflict, the 
 written always triumphs over the unwritten ; but the 
 relative culture of conquerors and conquered points, in 
 this instance, rather toward a gradual amalgamation 
 of the two races than to the extermination of the sub- 
 ject race. 
 
 40. What probably became of the Kelts at the Saxon 
 occupation ? 
 
 "We have already seen that the Kelts, just before the 
 alleged date of the Saxon occupation, were utterly desti- 
 tute of military and civic organization, and so broken in 
 spirit as humbly to entreat the Romans to return and de- 
 fend them against Caledonian raids. In such circum- 
 stances, it is not likely that they waged war to the death 
 against their new foes. Nor is it any more likely that 
 the Saxons insisted on driving the Kelts from the land 
 and ruling over a desert. 
 
 The probability is that, while some of the Britons of 
 whom the heroic Arthur may be merely a mythical type
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 47 
 
 made valiant resistance to the invading Saxons, and 
 retired, when defeated, to the mountains of Wales, where 
 they might still retain the language and religion of their 
 fathers, the great mass of the Keltic race remained in 
 their ancient abodes, and, in the slow process of Saxon 
 occupation, were gradually amalgamated with their con 
 querors. This is the view which is maintained, at the 
 present day, by the best authorities;* and, on ethno- 
 logic and historic grounds, there are strong reasons for 
 adopting it. 
 
 41. To what degree did the Keltic language influence 
 the construction and vocabulary of the Anglo-Saxons ? 
 
 On philological grounds, however, this view might se- 
 riously be called in question. So far as language is con- 
 cerned, there was, certainly, no amalgamation between 
 the Keltic and the Saxon. 
 
 Mr. Nicholas, whose Pedigree of the Enylidt People 
 is, avowedly, written to establish the fact that the Keltic 
 element entered very largely into the composition of the 
 English race, admits that the Anglo-Saxon speech sup- 
 planted that of the conquered Kelts. " There are only 
 the sparsest signs of Keltic," he says, "in the earliest 
 Anglo-Saxon literature."! 
 
 And any signs of Keltic influence which the Anglo- 
 Saxon literature may betray are, confessedly, confined to 
 a word, here and there, which is apparently of Keltic ori- 
 
 * Sec Nicholas, Pedigree of English People, p. 117 sq. ; Palgravc, 
 Hist, of Anglo-Saxons, pp. 38, 71-72; Matthew Arnold, Celtic Literature, 
 p. 90 sq. ; Pearson, England during Early and Middle Ages, v. i., pp. 94, 
 97, 99. The latter says : " The common belief that the Keltic population 
 of Britain was exterminated, or driven into Wales or Brittany, by the 
 Saxons, has absolutely no foundation in history." In Scott's novel of 
 Ivanhoe, " Gurth the Swineherd" was, beyond doubt, intended as a type 
 of the subject Kelt. 
 
 f P. 365.
 
 48 THE ENGLISn LANGUAGE 
 
 gin. The construction of the Anglo-Saxon sentence is 
 not modified, in the slightest degree, by the syntactical 
 peculiarities of the Keltic. 
 
 Keltic origin has, indeed, been claimed for a very con- 
 siderable percentage of English words ; but, to establish 
 this claim, many words have been referred to a distinc- 
 tively Keltic source which should have been referred, in a 
 general way, to an Indo-European source ; * while some 
 modern importations from the Keltic,f some words which 
 have come into the English from the Keltic through the 
 French, J and even some words which the Keltic gets from 
 the English, are used to swell the list of words adduced to 
 prove an ancient amalgamation of the Saxon and Keltic 
 races. Mr. Nicholas claims, as unmistakably Keltic, only 
 165 words which are found in our English dictionaries 
 of which number I should be inclined to concede 
 hardly more than one third ; though others which are 
 claimed by Garnett, but not mentioned by Nicholas 
 ought, it seems to me, in fairness to be added. The 
 number of old English words which can be traced to a 
 Keltic source is, however, upon the most generous esti- 
 mate, small. 
 
 * A little pamphlet, published by Trubner & Co., On the Influence of 
 the English and Welsh Languages on each other, affords copious illustra- 
 tions of this fact. 
 
 f E. g. : Brogue, clan, shanty, whiskey (Irish uisgc = water). 
 
 \ E. g. : Cabin, quay, and oddly enough Sir Walter Scott's " beef " 
 and "mutton." See Chevallet, UOriginc et formation de la Langue 
 Francaise. 
 
 Garnett, Philological Essays, p. 161 sq. (cf. Morley, Writers before 
 Chaucer, p. 164 sq.), claims 71 words relating to the useful arts, and says 
 that he does not mention one twentieth. It is safe to say that three 
 quarters of the words that Garnett claims as of Welsh origin would be 
 strange to the average American student.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 49 
 
 42. Characterize the Keltic contributions to our Eng- 
 lish vocabulary, 
 
 And the Keltic words in our language belong to the 
 yery lowest class of what are called "dictionary-words." 
 Indeed, those who would render prominent the Keltic 
 contributions to our English vocabulary, appeal, to prove 
 their point, from the written to the colloquial dialect 
 from the speech of the educated and refined, to the speech 
 of the ignorant and debased. 
 
 The topographical nomenclature of Britain especially 
 that of its river-system * is, as we should naturally expect, 
 largely Keltic. Many of our English surnames arc, also, 
 of Welsh or Gaelic extraction, f Still, there is truth in 
 Craik's statement J that "the English can, at most, be 
 said to be powdered, or sprinkled, with a little Keltic " 
 though the powder is of a sort that tends wonderfully to 
 season and flavor our colloquial intercourse. 
 
 * Avon is the Keltic word for river ; and there are no less than three 
 Avons in England. The persistence of this topographical nomenclature, 
 of course, affords lio more proof of Keltic amalgamation than our reten- 
 tion of Indian names affords proof of Indian amalgamation. Yet see 
 Shepherd, Hist, of Eng. Lang., p. 28. 
 
 f See Nicholas, Pedigree of the English People, p. 472 sq. Examples 
 of the Welsh surnames in English arc : Jones, Owen, Evans, Howell, 
 Craddock, Caswell, Griffith, Davies, Lloyd, Lewis, Hughes, Morgan, and 
 many names compounded with Ap (the equivalent of the English -son, 
 the Scotch Mac, the Irish 0', the French Fitz). E. g. Apthorpe, Aptho- 
 mas, Bowen (Ap Owen), Prichard (Ap Richard). 
 
 \ Eng. Lit. and Lang., v. i, pp. 33, 34. 
 
 To illustrate the nature of our borrowings from the Keltic, take the 
 following list of words generally from a Kymric source : Aerie, bar, 
 basket, bard, balderdash (from baldarddi, to babble), brisk, brewis, 
 breeches, bother, bribe, boast, bump, cairn, carol, coot, coracle, corner, 
 crag, clout, cradle, crook, cromlech, crouch, crowder (from crowd or cryth, 
 a fiddle), dad, dock, druid, dandruff, dam, dainty, daub, flash, frith, fudge, 
 gable, gag, gyve, gun, gavel, gull, hoax, hitch, lad, lath, log, loop, loafer 
 (from Hojfa, to glean an habitue of free lunches ; others, from Ger. laufen, 
 to run on the " lucus a non luccndo " principle), lubber, lurk, maggot, 
 3
 
 50 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 43. Explain the origin of the Anglo-Saxon language, 
 and characterize its alphabet. 
 
 The language which supplanted the Keltic in Britain, 
 and which originated in the blending of several closely- 
 related Low German dialects, is commonly called the 
 Anglo-Saxon. To call it Early English, as has "been pro- 
 posed of late, is a sheer affectation ; for it is so unlike 
 the English that it can only be read by the aid of a gram- 
 mar and dictionary. To some of the characteristics of 
 this language we propose to call attention. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon alphabet consisted of 24 letters, 
 having no distinct representatives for the English J, K, 
 Q, V, and Z (using, instead, I, C, Cw, TJ, and S) ; but rep- 
 resenting by distinct characters the sounds M, Til in 
 " thin," and TH in " then." In other respects, the An- 
 glo-Saxon alphabet either was, or has been made to appear, 
 very similar to our own, both as respects the form and 
 the power of its letters. The most notable exception is 
 in the case of the Anglo-Saxon G, which sometimes had 
 a soft sound approximating to our Y.* Anglo-Saxon 
 books are generally printed in English type, though the 
 characters for TH and the character for G are sometimes, 
 and should be always, retained. 
 
 44. Characterize the Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon vocabulary was very copious, espe- 
 cially in " words which indicate different states, emotions, 
 passions, mental processes all, in short, that expresses 
 
 mail, mead, moult, mug, odd, penguin, perk, poke, poll, pall (verb), quip, 
 quibble, sad, sallow, squeal, squall, scare, spigot, spike, tall, tcdd, waist, 
 whim. 
 
 Some of these words (like basket) come to us through the French. 
 Others (like bard and druid) arc of recent introduction. See Morris, 
 Historic Outlines of English Accidence, p. 251. 
 
 * Cf. the Anglo-Saxon gear, year ; dag, day.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 51 
 
 the moral and intellectual man."* A large proportion 
 of the vocabulary of our best writers, and a still larger 
 proportion of the vocabulary of every-day life including 
 those words which are most likely to move the English 
 mind and fire the English heart are derived from this 
 source, f 
 
 * Marsh, Origin and History, p. 94. 
 
 f Angus {Hand-Book of the English Tongue, p. 4) estimates the words 
 in the English language, exclusive of preterites and participles, at about 
 38,000, of which number 25,000, or about five eighths, he regards as 
 of Saxon origin. Morris (Outlines of English Accidence, p. 34) puts the 
 number of words in the language at 100,000, and thinks words of clas- 
 sical origin outnumber words of Anglo-Saxon origin two to one. In 
 ordinary conversation we employ only from 3,000 to 5,000 words, and 
 few writers employ more than 10,000. The words in colloquial use, 
 and those employed by our best writers, are very largely of Anglo-Saxon 
 origin. According to Marsh (Lects. on Eng. Lang., p. 117 sq.), who has 
 made a careful examination of extended passages, the percentage of 
 Anglo-Saxon words in representative writers of different periods is 
 as follows : 
 
 John's Gospel 90 
 
 Piers Plowman, Introduction 88 
 
 Chaucer, Prologue 88 
 
 Spenser, Faerie Queene 86 
 
 Shakspere, Othello 89 
 
 Milton, U Allegro 90 
 
 " Paradise Lost 80 
 
 Pope, Essay on Man 80 
 
 Swift, Political Lying 68 
 
 " John Bull 85 
 
 Addison, Spectator 82 
 
 Johnson, Preface to Dictionary 72 
 
 Hume, History of England. ... 73 
 
 Gibbon, Decline and Fall. 70 
 
 Webster, Reply to Hayne 75 
 
 Irving, Stout Gentleman 85 
 
 " Westminster Abbey 77 
 
 Macaulay, Essay on Bacon 75 
 
 Prescott, Philip IT. 77 
 
 Mrs. Browning, Cry of the Children 92 
 
 " " The Lost Bower 77 
 
 Tennyson, The Lotus Eater 87 
 
 Ruskin, Modern Painters 73 
 
 Longfellow, Miles Standish 87
 
 62 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 Of 8,000 different words used by Milton, 33 per cent, 
 were Anglo-Saxon ; of 15,000 different worjds used by 
 Shakspere, 60 per cent. ; though the percentage of An- 
 glo-Saxon words actually used by these authors in any 
 given work is much greater. Scott uses 90 per cent, of 
 Anglo-Saxon words in poetry ; 80 per cent, in prose. 
 Bryant, in his " Death of the Flowers," uses 92 per cent, 
 of Anglo-Saxon words ; in his " Thanatopsis," 84 per 
 cent. Of recent prose-writers, Dickens uses 90 per cent, 
 of Anglo-Saxon words ; George Eliot, 80 per cent. ; Ha- 
 merton, 72 per cent. ; Prof. Draper, 67 per cent. It will 
 be seen that the percentage of Anglo-Saxon words in poe- 
 try is greater than that in prose ; and that, the more sim- 
 ple and tender the production, the greater the number of 
 words of native origin. When we are thoroughly earnest 
 
 For similar lists, covering some other names, see De Millc, Rhetoric, 
 p. 21 sq. 
 
 A large proportion of these words of Anglo-Saxon origin consists, 
 however, of repeated words binders, auxiliaries, etc. ; and the sense of 
 a passage (as we shall presently show) may reside quite as much in its 
 few classical as in its many Anglo-Saxon constituents. Still it is from 
 the Anglo-Saxon as is illustrated in the text that we derive the con- 
 structional elements in our modern English. That is, the structure of 
 our language is decidedly more Saxon than our vocabulary. 
 
 For further illustrations of our borrowings from the Anglo-Saxon, 
 and classified lists of Saxon-English words, see Angus and Morris, ut 
 supra, and also Henry E. Rogers in the Edinburgh Review for April, 1859. 
 It will be found that most words expressive of our earliest and dearest 
 relationships, our strongest and tcnderest feelings, (e. g., such words as 
 father, mother, brother, sister, hearth, home, heaven, hope, love, fear) 
 are of Anglo-Saxon origin. Also : the names of most objects of sense, 
 and of the common acts of life ; for " Anglo-Saxon is the language of 
 the shop, of the market, of the street, of the farm." It will also be 
 found that, while our general terms are mostly Latin, our specific terms 
 are largely Anglo-Saxon. E. g., color is Latin ; but blue, yellow, green, red, 
 end brown are Anglo-Saxon. Motion is Latin ; but creeping, walking, 
 riding, running are Anglo-Saxon. Sound is Latin ; but humming, buzzing, 
 speaking, hissing, grunting, squeaking, and whistling arc Anglo-Saxon.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 53 
 
 in any direction ; when we are simple, natural, and en- 
 tirely ourselves ; above all, when we are tender or devout, 
 our vocabulary will be likely to be made up very largely 
 of words of Anglo-Saxon origin. 
 
 Many of the Anglo-Saxon words are monosyllabic, and 
 all arc characterized by strength and pith rather than by 
 grace and dignity characteristics which they have abun- 
 dantly bestowed on our modern English. * 
 
 45. Explain the inflectional system of the Anglo-Saxon, 
 and indicate its influence on our modern English. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon was' a highly inflectional language. 
 It recognized (like the Latin and Greek, the French and 
 German) the grammatical gender of nouns a nuisance 
 which is fortunately abated in our day ; and also (like 
 the modern German) maintained a distinction in form 
 between adjectives used definitely and indefinitely. It 
 recognized two orders of nouns : the simple, ending in 
 an essential vowel ; and the complex, ending in a conso- 
 nant or an unessential vowel. The simple nouns em- 
 braced one declension, with three subordinate classes ; 
 
 * See Addison Alexander's monosyllabic poems, which one might 
 hardly recognize as monosyllabic, were not his attention called to it, so 
 little violence do they do to our ordinary methods of expression : 
 
 Think not that strength lies in the big round word, 
 
 Or that the brief and plain must needs be weak ; 
 To whom can this be true who once has heard 
 
 The cry for help, the tongue that all men speak 
 When want, or wo, or fear is in the throat, 
 
 So that each word gasped out is like a shriek 
 Pressed from the sore heart, or a strange wild note 
 
 Sung by some fay, or fiend. There is a strength 
 Which dies if stretched too far, or spun too fine, 
 
 Which has more height than breadth, more depth than length. 
 Let but this force of thought and speech be mine, 
 
 And he that will may take the sleek, fat phrase 
 Which glows and burns not, though it gleam and shine 
 
 Light, but no heat a flash, but not a blaze ! 
 
 Cf. Grant White, Life and Genius of Shakespeare, p. 216 sq.
 
 54: THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 the complex nouns, two declensions each with three sub- 
 ordinate classes.* There were five cases recognized in 
 the singular and five in the plural ; although only excep- 
 tionally owing to the degree to which the Teutonic in- 
 flectional system had already become disintegrated do 
 we find separate forms appropriated to each case, f The 
 pronouns were regularly declined ; and for the personal 
 pronouns of the first and second persons, there were dual, 
 as well as singular and plural forms. The Anglo-Saxon 
 adjective was regularly compared, as in modern English, 
 by the addition of -or and -ost ; but not by the use of 
 "more" and "most." The verbs were divided, on the 
 same principle as the nouns, into two orders the simple 
 and the complex which were subdivided into three con- 
 jugations and nine classes. The simple order (corre- 
 sponding to our regular verbs) formed the imperfect in 
 -ode and the past participle in -od. J The complex order 
 formed the imperfect and past participle by internal 
 change appending, however, for the past participle, the 
 termination -en. Four moods were recognized ; but 
 
 * The following will, perhaps, afford a sufficient illustration of the 
 Anglo-Saxon inflectional system : 
 
 NOUNS. 
 
 SIMPLE ORDER. COMPLEX ORDER. 
 
 Isi! Decl. 2d Decl. 3d Decl. 
 
 ' N. Tunge (a tongue), Dael (a part), Sunu (a son), 
 
 Ac. Tungan, Dael, Sunu, 
 
 D. and Ab. Tungan, Daele, Suna, 
 
 l^Gen. Tungan, Daeles, Suna, 
 
 !N. and Ac. Tungan, Daelas, Suna, 
 
 D. and Ab. Tungum, Daelum, Sunum, 
 
 Gen. Tungena. Daela. Suna. 
 f E. g. : In the interrogative pronoun. Sec the author's Art of Ex- 
 pression, p. 18. 
 
 \ E. g. : ic luf-ige, ic luf-ode, f/e-luf-od. 
 
 I love, I loved, loved. 
 
 E. g. : ic brece, ic braec, gebrocen. 
 
 I break, I broke, broken.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 55 
 
 only two tenses a present and imperfect,* and two par- 
 ticiples a present active and past passive. The Anglo- 
 Saxon verb had no proper auxiliaries such forms as sceal, 
 "shall," and wolde, "would" (from which our modern 
 auxiliaries are derived), having the force of principal and 
 independent verbs. Its infinitive was indicated by the 
 termination -an and not by the sign "to," which was ap- 
 propriated to the gerund a form that we have lost, 
 though it underlies such expressions as " This house to 
 let" ; "He is to blame," etc.f 
 
 The very few and very simple inflectional forms which 
 are recognized in the English of to-day are all of Anglo- 
 Saxon origin ; J and some knowledge of Anglo-Saxon is 
 essential to a thorough appreciation of them. 
 
 Many of our common idioms too (as "I had rather") 
 and not a few of our familiar vulgarisms (as " I be ") can 
 be explained by reference to the Anglo-Saxon or, at any 
 rate, traced to an Anglo-Saxon source. 
 
 46. What was the character and tendency of the Anglo- 
 Saxon Syntax? 
 
 In respect to construction, the Anglo-Saxon very close- 
 ly resembled the Latin possibly because the Latin was in 
 familiar use by those who gave shape to the written Anglo- 
 Saxon. || The language evinced a tendency, however, even 
 
 * There was no future the present serving instead, as so often in 
 modern English. E. g. : " Do you go to New York to-day ? " " Xo, I 
 am going to-morrow." 
 
 f See the author's Art of Expression, p. 28. 
 
 | E. g. : Our verbal and pronominal inflection ; our possessive case ; 
 our plurals in s and n ; our irregular plurals ; our comparison of adjec- 
 tives, whether regular or irregular. Sec the author's Art of Expression, 
 pp. 45, 47, 37, 25, 31, 19, 15, 62. 
 
 See the author's Art of Expression, pp. 8, 26, 54, 37. 
 
 | See March, A. S. Grammar, p. 2 ; Marsh, Origin and History, p. 
 47. Garnett says (Essays, p. 63) " There are many reasons for believing
 
 56 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 in its earliest existing forms, to arrange the members of 
 the sentence in that Logical order which is characteristic 
 of a positional syntax. That is to say : it did not avail 
 itself, so much as it might have done, of that inversion 
 which is possible to an inflectional language, and is, to an 
 English student, such a striking characteristic of the 
 Latin and Greek.* 
 
 47. What was the influence of the Anglo-Saxon litera- 
 ture on English literature; and what was its character 
 and value ? 
 
 Marsh f very justly says : " The earliest truly English 
 'writers borrowed neither imagery, nor thought, nor plan 
 seldom even form, from older native models ; and hence 
 Anglo-Saxon literature, so far from being the mother, was 
 not even the nurse of the infant genius which opened its 
 eyes to the sun of England five centuries ago." 
 
 "With reference to the Anglo-Saxon, it may be said that 
 we do not study the language to get at the literature ; but 
 the literature to get at the language. And the language 
 is worth getting at, altogether apart from the fact that 
 we are indebted to it for much of our vocabulary and 
 almost all of our constructional forms. Earle \ says : 
 " Speaking relatively to the times, it was not a rude lan- 
 guage, but probably the most disciplined of the vernacu- 
 lars of western Europe, and certainly the most cultivated 
 of all the dialects of the Gothic barbarians. Its grammar 
 was regulated, its orthography mature and almost fixed. 
 It was capable not of poetry alone, but of eloquent prose 
 also ; and it was equal to the task of translating the Latin 
 authors who were the literary models of the day." 
 
 that the written Anglo-Saxon, though perhaps generally understood by our 
 ancestors, was by no means universally spoken." 
 
 * See the author's Art of Expression, p. 17 
 
 f Origin and History, p. 100. 
 
 \ Philology of Eng. Tongue, p. 40.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 57 
 
 The literary remains of the Anglo-Saxon period are, 
 on the other hand, comparatively meager ; and their in- 
 herent value is as slight as their formative influence. 
 They evince activity, rather than fertility, of intellect ; 
 and are characterized by a practical and, generally, a 
 devout turn of mind rather than by marked genius.* 
 
 48. Mention some characteristics of the Anglo-Saxon 
 poetry which have influenced our English verse. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon poetry had some peculiarities which 
 have not been wholly without influence upon the form of 
 our English verse, f 
 
 It dispensed with rhymes and availed itself, instead, of 
 what Churchill calls 
 
 "Apt alliteration's artful aid," 
 
 as a means of producing an agreeable effect on the ear of 
 the hearer. "While in modern English, however, allitera- 
 tion, i. e., beginning successive syllables with similar 
 sounds, is only accepted as an occasional excellence, with 
 our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, at least one accented syllable 
 in each line of a couplet (generally, two in the first line 
 and one in the second) must begin with a similar sound. J 
 Piers Plowman, though belonging to a later period, ad- 
 mirably exemplifies this characteristic of Anglo-Saxon 
 verse. For example : 
 
 " I was weori of wandringe 
 And went me to reste 
 
 * Pearson, who is inclined to discriminate between the Angles and 
 the Saxons, says the Saxons produced only chronicles and theology, while 
 the Angles " produced one great historian, Bede ; a single philosopher, 
 Alcuin ; and a great poet, Caadmon." Vol. i., p. 108. 
 
 f See Spalding, Eng. Lit., p. 43 ; Marsh, Origin and History, p. 284 ; 
 Morley, Writers before Chaucer, p. 265. 
 
 \ See the Clarendon Press Flo's Plowman^ p. xxxii. sq.
 
 58 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 Under a Jrod Sanke 
 
 Bi a bourne side ; 
 
 And as I /ay and Zeonede 
 
 And foked on the watres, 
 
 I slumberde in a slepynge, 
 
 Hit sowned so murie." 
 
 49. Explain the difference between the English metri- 
 cal system and that of the Greeks and Romans. 
 
 The rhythm of the Anglo-Saxon poetry was regulated, 
 as in our modern English, by accent and not by quantity. 
 We, however, conforming in some respects to the classical 
 models, require lines that correspond to each other in 
 position to have a uniform number of syllables, and 
 insist on an accented syllable where the classical metres 
 would have a long syllable, and an unaccented syllable 
 where the classical metres would have a short syllable 
 so that the difference between our poetry, measured 
 by accent, and that of the Greeks and Eomans, meas- 
 ured by quantity, is comparatively slight. The two met- 
 rical systems, as Mrs. Browning aptly remarks,* differ 
 only as the notes of a harp differ from the notes of an 
 organ. 
 
 In the case of Anglo-Saxon poetry, the number of the 
 unaccented syllables in a line and the position of the ac- 
 cented syllables was a matter of comparative indifference 
 all that was constant and invariable being the number 
 of the latter. 
 
 50. In what circumstances did Caedmon write ; what 
 is the nature of his writings : and what special value at- 
 taches to them ? 
 
 First among the few Anglo-Saxon writers whose names, 
 at least, should be familiar to every educated American 
 
 * Essays on the Poets, p. 129 sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 59 
 
 was the Northumbrian Caedmon, who lived in the latter 
 half of the seventh century.* He was attached proba- 
 bly, as a servant to the monastery of Whitby, and com- 
 posed, professedly under divine inspiration, poems, de- 
 scriptive of the creation, fall and redemption of man, 
 which are certainly not deficient in rude and homely 
 power. From these poems which were first republished 
 in 1G55, only ten years before the completion of the 
 Paradise Lost some have supposed that Milton derived 
 the idea of his immortal epic. There is certainly a simi- 
 larity between the writings of Caedmon and this master- 
 piece of Milton, not only in plan but in many minor 
 points. 
 
 Only one manuscript of Casdmon's poems exists, and 
 to that we can hardly assign an earlier date than the tenth 
 century. 
 
 51. What is the antiquity, character and value of 
 Beowulf? 
 
 A single manuscript of about the same date some- 
 what defective and very corrupt preserves for us " The 
 Tale of Beowulf," an heroic poem of 6357 lines for which 
 an antiquity is claimed greater than that of " the Nie- 
 belungenlied."f Although only known to exist in its 
 
 * See Spalding, Eng. Lit., p. 41 ; Horley, Writers before Chaucer, 
 pp. 302-318; Thorpe's translation of Casdmon; The Development of 
 English Literature, by Brother Azarias, p. 100 sq. Chambers's Cyclopce- 
 dia of Literature, vol. i., tells the history of Ciedmon's alleged inspiration 
 and gives a very favorable specimen of his poetry. 
 
 Some see Thorpe, ut supra, p. xix. sq. question whether such a 
 person as Caedmon ever existed supposing both the name and the story 
 of his miraculous endowment with the gift of song to have been invented 
 to give prestige to the metrical productions of a later period. 
 
 f Thorpe, translation of Beowulf, p. vii., calls it " The oldest heroic 
 poem in any Germanic tongue," and regards it as having a substantial 
 basis in history. He gives a very good analysis of the poem, p. xxii. sq.
 
 60 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 Anglo-Saxon garb, and evidently recast by some Christian 
 poet, the Tale of Beowulf is essentially a Norse saga. Its 
 hero is a Scandinavian warrior who overcomes, by his 
 superhuman strength and matchless valor, the monstrous 
 descendants of Cain ; and its scene is laid according to 
 Thorpe and Grein in Jutland. There is, certainly, no 
 relic of Anglo-Saxon literature which is so well worth 
 studying or so difficult to study as this poem. It is a 
 veritable epic, full of the fire of genuine poetry ; and, at 
 the same time, a thesaurus of valuable information re- 
 specting the ethnology, history, geography, and social life 
 of the northern nations. 
 
 52, Characterize the literary labors of Alfred. 
 
 Reference has already been made to the Anglo-Saxon 
 Chronicle, which, though it implicitly claims a more an- 
 cient origin, was probably begun in the reign of Alfred 
 and through his influence.* That pious prince who was 
 born in 849 and died 901 was not more eminent for his 
 personal bravery and wise statesmanship than for his muni- 
 ficent and judicious patronage of letters. If we concede 
 to Dante the proud title, which is sometimes given him, 
 of "the first Italian," we can hardly deny to Alfred the 
 honor of being the first Englishman. He it was who first 
 discerned the capabilities of our homely English tongue, 
 and sought, by precept and example, to give it social and 
 literary position. Possessed, himself, of a degree of taste 
 and culture which was quite unusual for a king in that 
 rude age, he gathered about him learned men from every 
 adjacent kingdom, as well as from his own realm, and 
 
 Cf. The Development of English Literature, p. 39 sq., and TJie Canadian 
 Monthly, v. ii., p. 83. 
 
 * See Morley, Writers before Chaucer, pp. 389-410; Spalding, Eng. 
 Lit., pp. 43-46. 
 
 For an attractive and, in the main, trustworthy sketch of Alfred,
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. Gl 
 
 engaged them in the task of translating, into the language 
 of the common people, works which had formerly existed 
 only in the Latin tongue. Prominent among these were 
 Bede's Ecclesiastical History of Britain, the ancient his- 
 tory of Orosius, and Boethius on the Consolations of 
 Philosophy. 
 
 Some of these works were paraphrased, rather than 
 translated, and interspersed with such frequent and copi- 
 ous comments as elevate the labors of Alfred almost to 
 the rank of original composition.* It was, however, not 
 the love of fame, but a desire to promote the welfare of 
 his subjects that prompted their execution ; and all Al- 
 fred's literary labors were animated by a utilitarian and, 
 generally, a devout purpose. The principle that gov- 
 erned his life can hardly be better expressed than in his 
 own, words : "When the good things of this life are good, 
 then are they good through the goodness of the good man 
 that worketh good through them ; and he is good through 
 God." 
 
 53. What is the most eminent name in Anglo-Saxon 
 literature after the time of Alfred ? 
 
 The only name that deserves to be mentioned in con- 
 nection with Anglo-Saxon literature, after the time of 
 Alfred, is that of Aelfric,f Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 who died 1006, leaving behind him a large number of 
 homilies (which, being easily translated, do frequent duty 
 in our Anglo-Saxon readers) and a translation of the Pen- 
 tateuch in the vernacular. 
 
 see Hughes'a life. Cf. Palgrave, Hist, of Anglo-Saxons, pp. 134-160; 
 Pearson, England during Early and Middle Ages, vol. i., p. 1*76. 
 
 * Cf. his additions to Orosius, descriptive of the voyages of Wulf- 
 stane and Othtere, two of his captains. 
 
 f See Morley, ut supra, p. 417 sq. ; Spaldiug, ut supra, p. 44.
 
 62 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 54. To what degree was latin used in England during 
 the Anglo-Saxon period ; and who were the most eminent 
 authors using the Latin language ? 
 
 Lest the literary spirit of the Anglo-Saxon period 
 should seem less fruitful than it really was, it should be 
 remembered that, from the time when the Teutonic set- 
 tlers in Britain received the Christian religion at the 
 hands of the monk Augustine, A. D. 596, the language 
 of the Latin church was the language of Anglo-Saxon 
 culture. Contemporaneous with the writers whom we 
 have noticed as using the vulgar tongue, was a long line 
 of ecclesiastics who wrote in Latin. 
 
 Foremost among these was " the venerable Bede " * 
 an historian of no mean skill and of devout and humble 
 life whose Latin works are extant in eight folio volumes ; 
 Bishop Aldhelm, f who wrote a prose treatise and a poem, 
 both extant, upon the Virtue of Virginity; Asser,J a 
 Welsh monk who was the friend and biographer of Al- 
 fred ; and Alcuin, who was, preeminently, the scholar 
 of the period. 
 
 55. What British authors of note wrote in Latin dur- 
 ing the period following the Norman conquest ? 
 
 In order that it may not be necessary to refer again 
 to the Latin literature of Britain, let me mention here, 
 as Latin authors belonging to the period which followed 
 the Norman conquest, William of Malmesbury and Geof- 
 frey of Monmouth, eminent in history ; Duns Scotus, || 
 
 * Died 735. See Morley, ut supra, pp. 348-362 ; Spalding, ut supra, 
 p. 35. 
 
 f Died 709. See Morley, pp. 341-347. 
 
 \ Died circ. 910. See Morley, pp. 367-378. 
 
 Died 804. See Pearson, England during Early and Middle Ages, 
 v. i., p. 305 sq. 
 
 I Died 1308. See Morley, p. 701 sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 63 
 
 eminent in philosophy ; Roger Bacon,* eminent in physi- 
 cal science ; Anselm,f Archbishop of Canterbury, emi- 
 nent in theology ; John of Salisbury J and Walter Map, 
 eminent in literature. 
 
 Some of these writers are worthy of especial attention. 
 Anselm's Cur Deus Homo ? is still an authority, of great- 
 er or less weight, in theological circles. Roger Bacon is 
 coming to be regarded as an intelligent and enterprising 
 investigator of physical phenomena, rather than a devo- 
 tee of "the black art." Indeed, some go so far as to 
 rank him superior to his more famous successor, Francis 
 Bacon, || and regard him as the prototype of the emi- 
 nent physicists of the present day. To Walter Map jus- 
 tice has hardly yet been done, since his reputation has 
 been temporarily obscured by his being obliged to father 
 a rude drinking song, which he certainly did not intend 
 (if he wrote it all) as the expression of his own sentiments. 
 He deserves the title of the first English litterateur ; and, 
 to my mind, had so much to do with shaping the cycle 
 of Arthurian romances that he may fairly be regarded as 
 their author. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that Latin was in England 
 as, indeed, throughout Christendom the medium 
 through which the learned gave the results of their toil 
 to the world, for several centuries after the period of 
 which we treat. The Latin poems of Milton attracted 
 quite as much attention, and elicited quite as much praise, 
 as the Paradise Lost and the Penseroso. Indeed, it is 
 only within a comparatively recent period that the ver- 
 nacular speech of England, France, or Germany has been 
 
 * Died 1292. See Morley, p. 688 sq. 
 
 t Died 1109. See Church's life. Cf. Pearson, ut swp., v. i., pp. 449 
 sq., 607 sq. 
 
 | Died 1180. See Craik, Eng. Lit. and Lang., v. i., p. 80. 
 Died 1210. See Morley, p. 353 sq. 
 D See Jcvons, Elementary Logic, p. 229.
 
 64 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 thought worthy to be made the vehicle of man's pro- 
 foundest thoughts and most abstruse speculations, or that 
 an author could find, among his own countrymen, a suf- 
 ficient number with means to buy, and culture to appre- 
 preciate, a work of the highest learning. Previous to 
 that time, Latin was the common speech of intellectual 
 Europe a fact of which the educational system of Europe 
 still bears abundant traces. 
 
 56. Mention the different grades in Anglo-Saxon soci- 
 ety, with the privileges and duties of each ? 
 
 Before dismissing the subject of distinctively Anglo- 
 Saxon England, it may be well to call attention to some 
 characteristics of political and social life among the 
 Teutonic settlers of Britain, which have not been with- 
 out their influence on the institutions of modern Eng- 
 land, or even of the United States, and which have 
 helped to modify the literature of the English-speak- 
 ing people. 
 
 THE FKEEMAIST. 
 
 The fundamental unit in Anglo-Saxon society, as in 
 that of modern England, was the ceorl (churl) or free- 
 man. He possessed an hereditary landed estate ; was en- 
 titled to a voice in the management of affairs in the sec- 
 tion where his lands lay ; must bear a part in the defense 
 of the community ; and had certain privileges and immu- 
 nities, by virtue of the fact that he was a landed proprie- 
 tor his distinctive characteristic being the right of self- 
 government.* His proper measure and value was deter- 
 mined by a wer-gyld (price of a man) which he who slew 
 him must pay. 
 
 * See Kemblc, Saxons in England, v. i., p. 129.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. C5 
 
 THE NOBLE BY BIRTH. 
 
 Besides the freeman, we have him who was, by birth, 
 not only free but noble being descended, in popular esti- 
 mation, from the military and naval kings of the northern 
 nations.* The noble by birth belongs to the class of free- 
 men, and springs out of it. He has more land in his own 
 right ; conducts the business of the popular assembly, 
 and executes its will. His life is estimated at a higher 
 value than that of the simple freeman ; and he alone can, 
 upon the demand of the people, exercise priestly, judicial, 
 and kingly functions. The title heretoga (leader of the 
 host, Ger. Herzoy], was, probably, at first, applied to him 
 from a military point of view ; while, from a civil stand- 
 point, he was known as ealdorman (" alderman ; " cf. 
 Fr. seigneur}. Subsequently, he came to bear the title 
 of eorl ("earl ;" cf. Danish jarl).\ 
 
 * This is the only kind of nobility, according to Lappenbcrg (Anylo- 
 Saxon Kings), which was recognized in the early Anglo-Saxon states ; 
 though Pearson (England during the Early and Middle Ages) and Free- 
 man (Growth of the English Constitution), following Tacitus, would 
 recognize nobility by service as existing in Anglo-Saxon England from 
 the first. 
 
 f According to Kcmble (vol. i., p. 149) Canute the Dane reduced the 
 (aldormcn, who had presided over the different counties of Britain, to a 
 dependent position, and placed over several combined counties an earl 
 (jarl), with powers analogous to those of the Frankish dukes. Thus 
 grew up the seven great earldoms which we find in the time of Edward 
 the Confessor (1051), and which Palgrave enumerates as follows : 
 
 1. Earldom of Lothian, held by the king of the Scots. 
 
 2. Siward's Earldom Northumberland. 
 
 3. Harold's Earldom East Anglia. 
 
 4. Godwin's Earldom the southern counties. 
 
 5. Lcofric's Earldom, i In the west of England lying, in the order 
 
 6. Ralph's Earldom, -j named, north of Godwin's earldom and west 
 
 7. Sweyne's Earldom, ( of Harold's. 
 
 The incumbents of these earldoms were, at the time of the Norman 
 conquest, mainly Saxons ; and Harold and Sweyne were the sons of God- 
 win, whose daughter Edith Edward had married. Between them and 
 Edward's Norman followers great dissension naturally arose.
 
 66 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 THE KING. 
 
 According to the best authorities (Kemble, Lappen- 
 berg, Palgrave, Pearson), no king was recognized by the 
 Teutonic tribes previous to their settlement in Britain. 
 For any enterprise of especial magnitude or danger, a 
 temporary leader was chosen from the old, heroic stock 
 which claimed descent from Woden. This leader was 
 probably called lieretoga. On the soil of Britain, where 
 there was necessity for permanent leadership, the hereto- 
 ga soon grew into a king. Priestly, judicial, and military 
 functions naturally resided in the old families which 
 claimed descent from the gods.* In every shire, there 
 came to be one person, of illustrious descent, who exer- 
 cised kingly functions ; though the title king f was not, 
 at first, applied to him who held this office and wielded 
 this dignity. An hereditary monarchy was never recog- 
 nized by the Anglo-Saxons. Some one of the (etlielings 
 (sons of the king, or, in default of them, relatives in the 
 line of succession : cf. Ger. edel}, who was deemed best 
 fitted to rule, was chosen by the witena-gemot (meeting 
 of wise men) or national parliament. Sometimes, ap- 
 parently, the whole people had a voice in the selection. J 
 
 Some writers claim that a higher dignitary than the 
 king was recognized in the Bretwalda (ruler, or emperor, 
 of the Britons). Pearson regards the Bretwaldaship, how- 
 ever, as purely a Northumbrian title ; and Kemble || ques- 
 tions whether it denoted any official dignity or office 
 considering it a mere title assumed by kings of excep- 
 tional power and influence. 
 
 The king, among the Anglo-Saxons, stood in the same 
 
 *Sec Kcmblc, vol. i., p. 146. 
 
 \ From cyn, genus, cyne, generosus ; not from cunnan, to know. 
 
 % Sco Lappcnberg, vol. ii., p. 309. 
 
 See Lappenberg, vol. i., p. 125 sq. 
 
 || Vol. ii., p. 8 sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. C7 
 
 relation to tho eorl, as the eorl to the ccorl. lie was king 
 of the tribe or people not of the land;* derived his 
 power from tho people, and was, essentially, one of the 
 people. The principal distinction between him and the 
 rest of the people was that he possessed more land in his 
 own right (he had none by virtue of his office), and that 
 a higher value was set on his life. He was president of 
 the witena-gemot, or national assembly, and the supreme 
 conservator of the public peace. He had a definite share 
 of the booty taken in war and the fines imposed on crimi- 
 nals ; and was entitled to expect voluntary gifts from the 
 people out of which a system of taxation ultimately 
 grew. He had also a right to a comitatus (cf. Lat. comes 
 comitis), or body of armed companions in which fact 
 some have found the germ of the modern standing army. 
 His will was limited by the action of the witena-gemdt, 
 which had elected and could depose him ; and his prin- 
 cipal duty was to carry out the will of that body in peace 
 and war.f He was, in short, the prototype of the lim- 
 ited monarch (or the elected president) of the present 
 day, rather than of the autocrat who sought to assert his 
 personal supremacy during the Stuart dynasty ; and Eng- 
 land, in the revolutions of 1G40 and 1688, was simply 
 reacting, against the abuses of feudalism, toward the 
 primitive Anglo-Saxon conception of the duties and pre- 
 rogatives of the kingly office. 
 
 THE NOBLE BY SERVICE. 
 
 If there did not exist among the Saxons, at the time 
 of the occupation of Britain, a class of men who were 
 accounted noble by service rather than by birth, such a 
 class speedily sprang into being and soon supplanted the 
 old nobility. The members of this class were ordinarily 
 
 * See Kemble, vol. i., p. 152. 
 f See Kemble, vol. ii., p. 29.
 
 68 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 called thanes* (A. S. thegnian, to serve ; cf. Ger. dienen). 
 They were the king's dependents constituting his comi- 
 tatus and, in their case, the idea of honor replaced the 
 idea of political freedom, f 
 
 This class was constantly recruited not merely from 
 those who were not freeholders, but from the ranks of 
 those who preferred nobility, ease, and wealth to the rights 
 of personal proprietorship. To be a freeman, in the tech- 
 nical sense, an Anglo-Saxon must possess, in his own 
 right, a hid of land (from 33 to 40 acres) ; but, if his fam- 
 ily had held five hides of land for three generations, the 
 ceorl could, accepting a position of dependence on the 
 king, become a thane, and the merchant who had thrice 
 crossed the sea, on his own account, was entitled to the 
 rank of thane J a concession of the nobility of commerce 
 which is as rare as it is gratifying. 
 
 The wer-gyld of a king's thane was equal to that of six 
 ceorls, and his word with reference to any litigated matter 
 was as good as that of six ceorls. From these thanes, the 
 edldormen, or rulers of the shires, came to be appointed. 
 They were bound to military service on horseback and 
 were members of the witena-gemot, or national assembly. 
 
 The number of these thanes gradually increased, and 
 with it their power and wealth, until they came to have 
 thanes of their own. Not merely the freeholders, but 
 even the poorer free nobles, gave up their political rights 
 in a measure, their personal freedom and, for the sake 
 of protection, became dependents (villani) on these de- 
 pendents of the king. The old free nobility dwindled in 
 numbers and in power ; and thus, even before the Norman 
 conquest, the germs at least of " the feudal system " came 
 
 * Sometimes gesidh, from sidfi, a journey. Cf. Lat. comes from cu- 
 mire. See Kemble, v. i., p. 168. 
 f Sec Kemble, vol. i., p. 173 sq. 
 \ See Lappenberg, v. ii., p. 316.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. C9 
 
 to bo implanted in England* a system which it has 
 taken centuries to break down. 
 
 THE SLAVE. 
 
 According to Kemble,f serfs existed, along with free- 
 men and nobles, in the Anglo-Saxon state, from the very 
 first. Freeman, Pearson, and others regard the servile 
 population which existed in Britain, during the Anglo- 
 Saxon period, as a later development. There were cer- 
 tainly, toward the close of the Anglo-Saxon rule in Britain, 
 persons enough held in various degrees of servitude (thrall, 
 thcow, esna) to constitute one tenth of the entire popula- 
 tion ; and these were bought and sold with the land, like 
 so many cattle. They were by far the most numerous on 
 the Welsh border, J and in the "Domesday Book" not a 
 single slave was registered for East Anglia ; from which 
 we infer that the slaves were largely of Keltic origin. 
 Not all the Kelts were slaves, however ; for Lappenbcrg 
 tells us that "even the indigenous Britons were free," 
 and Pearson recognizes, as a distinct class in society, 
 "the free by service" made up largely of "Romanized 
 Britons." 
 
 Kemble divides the slaves into : 
 
 1. Serfs by war, marriage with a female slave, volun- 
 tary surrender, settlement, sale, crime, and kidnapping. 
 There was, as this enumeration shows, a wide-spread ten- 
 dency of the free-born citizens to sink into a servile con- 
 dition. 
 
 2. Slaves by birth ; for in the Anglo-Saxon state 
 slavery was hereditary. 
 
 The condition of the slave varied a good deal with the 
 cause of his enslavement. It was hard, not from the labor 
 
 * See Kemble, vol. i., ch. vii. especially, p. 184. 
 
 f Vol. i., p. 122 sq. 
 
 J See Lappenberg, v. ii., p. 312.
 
 70 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 exacted, so much as from the irresponsibility of the mas- 
 ter for any wrong done the slave. The master could sell 
 a theow ; but not beyond the sea. The clergy, as a class, 
 greatly favored manumission, and the influence of Chris- 
 tianity did much to ameliorate the condition of the slave. 
 
 57. Give an outline of the facts respecting the political 
 constitution of the Anglo-Saxon state. 
 
 The basis of the Anglo-Saxon state seems to have been 
 the household, the freeman who was at the head of it 
 being held responsible for his immediate dependents. 
 
 Ten of these households constituted a TITHING,* each 
 one of whose members gave security (fridh-borh, peace 
 pledge) for the acts of every other, f Every free member 
 of the community, above twelve years old, whose rank and 
 possessions were not a sufficient guarantee for his good 
 behavior, was bound to enrol himself in a tithing which 
 should be surety for his conduct. In each of these tith- 
 ings an assembly (tithing's gemot J) was held, as occasion 
 required, for the adjustment of affairs pertaining to the 
 Avelfare of the little community. 
 
 Ten of these ti things made up a HUNDRED, whose 
 
 * Or " tenthing " (A. S. teodhe, tenth). Ten was, theoretically, the 
 number of households included ; but there was considerable variation 
 from this number in practice. A similar remark is true with reference to 
 the "hundreds." Compare with the Anglo-Saxon state-system of house- 
 holds, tithings, hundreds and shires, the Attic system of families, gentes, 
 phratries, and tribes. Something similar to this existed in most of the 
 early Indo-European states ; and, indeed, is traceable in our own country 
 to-day. 
 
 t See Lappenberg, v. ii., p. 231, who compares the Anglo-Saxon fridh- 
 borh with the Norman frank-pledge, and thinks the former was a very 
 late, and possibly a Norman, institution. 
 
 \ A. S. mefan, to assemble; cf. our "moot-court." 
 
 Lappenberg (vol. ii., p. 329) says : " A district which chose a hundred 
 men for the protection and advice of the caldorman." In the north of
 
 AXD ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 71 
 
 members constituted a larger district for the purposes of 
 police and military service. In each of these districts 
 there was an assembly, called the hundred's ycmot, which 
 met once a month to adjust questions that were voluntarily 
 submitted to it.* Over this assembly the ealdorman of 
 the district presided, assisted by the bishop and the prin- 
 cipal thanes. The finding of a verdict in questions sub- 
 mitted was generally put into the hands of twelve of the 
 principal thanes, and the decision of two thirds was re- 
 garded as a valid judgment.! These thanes have been 
 regarded by some as exercising the functions of both a 
 grand and petit jury that is, as deciding whether there 
 was cause of action in a given case ; and, if so, on which 
 side the wrong lay, and what penalty the wrong-doer 
 must endure. Both Lappenberg J and Pearson insist, 
 however, that no such thing a? trial by jury was rec- 
 ognized in England so late as the reign of Alfred. | 
 
 An uncertain and fluctuating number of hundreds 
 made up the SHIKE, with an ealdorman or duke (A. S. 
 hereto ff a, Ger. Her zoo) at its head. The ruler of the shire 
 
 England the " hundred " was called a wapcntakc, from the A. S. wdcpcn, 
 weapons, and tacan, to lay hold of. 
 
 * Many possessions of the king, clergy, and nobility were exempted 
 from the jurisdiction of the hundreds ; and within these exempted pos- 
 sessions hall-motes were held. This privilege of exemption was called 
 saca (Ger. Sache, cause), and the ceorls who were subject to these special 
 jurisdictions were called soc-men. These special jurisdictions were, how- 
 ever, subject to the scir-gemot. See Pearson, v. i., p. 254. The chief 
 municipal court of London was called the Ihtx-thing (house-council), 
 whence the modern "hustings." See Lappenberg, v. ii., p. 355. 
 
 f See Lappenberg, v. ii., p. 845. 
 
 j V. ii., p. 347. 
 
 V. i., p. 175. 
 
 H Trial by jury is traced by some to this committee of thanes, which 
 has already been characterized ; by others to the system of compurgators, 
 which was recognized among the Anglo-Saxons. See Lappeuberg, v. ii., 
 p. 345.
 
 72 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 belonged, at first, to the old hereditary nobility, and 
 probably attained his preeminence by sheer force of merit. 
 In the later Anglo-Saxon state, he was appointed for life 
 by the king, with the advice and consent of the witena- 
 gemot,* and not unfrequently from, the ranks of the 
 thanes. From the very first, the shire, or county, had 
 all the organization of a state ; and maintained relations 
 to the kingdom similar to those of our " sovereign states" 
 to the federal union, f In both the tithing, the hundred, 
 and the shire, there was an executive officer known as 
 the reeve (A. S.gerefa; Ger. Graf; Scir-gerefa = ~Exig. 
 sheriff). In the tithings and hundreds, the reeve was 
 elected. In the shires, he was appointed by the king.J 
 The scir-gemot, which corresponded to the tithing' 's gemot 
 and the hundred's gemot, met twice a year. 
 
 Besides the different assemblies already noted, there 
 was, at first, a Folc-gemot, or general assembly of the free- 
 men, which came together, at the ringing of the bell, 
 upon any sudden emergency. This assembly the ana- 
 logue of our Yankee "town meeting" was adapted, 
 however, only to a small state, and the pure democracy 
 of the Folc-gemot gave place to the Witena-gemot (or 
 assembly of wise men), which is generally represented as 
 the analogue, in some respects, of the British Parliament 
 or the American Congress, though it more closely resem- 
 bled the British House of Lords. || This body was made 
 up of : 
 
 1. The clergy. 
 
 2. The ealdormen (or hereditary nobility). 
 
 3. The thanes (or noble by service). 
 
 * See Kcmble, v. ii., p. 125 sq. 
 f Sec Pearson, v. i., p. 251 sq. 
 \ Lappenbcrg, v. ii., p. 328. 
 
 It is still maintained in some of the cantons of Switzerland. See 
 Freeman, Growth of the English Constitution. 
 || See Kcmble, v. ii., p. 182 sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 73 
 
 Its members all sat on a property-qualification, as 
 landed proprietors. In theory, this body was more pow- 
 erful than the English Parliament of to-day, and made 
 the Anglo-Saxon state an aristocracy rather than a king- 
 dom.* It had the right to elect or depose a king, and, 
 hence, to scrutinize all his acts ; the right to form alli- 
 ances and make treaties ; and in conjunction with the 
 king the right to appoint bishops to vacant sees, regulate 
 ecclesiastical affairs, levy taxes, raise troops, and grant 
 lands. 
 
 58. Give an outline of the facts with reference to the 
 Christianization of Britain. 
 
 It is probable that, during the period of Roman occu- 
 pation, Christianity was introduced into Britain ; but that 
 it gained a hold, not upon the Latinized centers of popu- 
 lation so much as on the scattered Kelts of the rural dis- 
 tricts, to whom, as a subject race, its teachings of human 
 equality and future retribution were not unlikely to prove 
 palatable, f British archaeology produces no traces of 
 Christian worship as the result of its investigation of 
 Roman remains ; but it is claimed that British bishops 
 attended the councils of Aries and Rimini ; and Tertul- 
 lian (who died A. D. 198) boasts that "regions of Britain 
 which the Roman soldier could not penetrate, had been 
 subdued by the Gospel." We must accept the early Chris- 
 tianization of Britain in order to account for the differ- 
 ences that existed, at a later period, between the Welsh 
 church and the Anglo-Saxon church, respecting the date 
 of Easter and other matters concerning which there would 
 naturally have been uniformity had the two churches had 
 the same origin. J 
 
 * See Pearson, v. i., p. 281. f Ibid., p. 75 sq. 
 
 \ Angus (Hand-Book of the Eng. Tongue, p. 13) appeals to certain 
 
 Anglo-Saxon terms for the doctrines and rites of Christianity, that are 
 4
 
 74 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 Without accepting the traditions which assure us that 
 Paul preached in Britain, or that the island was Chris- 
 tianized by Joseph of Arimathea, we may safely admit 
 that the British Kelts had, to some extent, accepted 
 Christianity before the advent of the Saxons ; and that 
 the old British population retained its churches in Wales, 
 if not in England * even into Anglo-Saxon times. It is 
 reasonably certain, however, that the Anglo-Saxons did 
 not derive Christianity from this source, and that Britain 
 had to be substantially rechristianized after the Saxon 
 settlement, f 
 
 Previous to their acceptance of Christianity, the Anglo- 
 Saxons worshiped the heavenly bodies and those deified 
 heroes with which the Scandinavian mythology has ren- 
 dered us familiar. Of this worship there are traces even 
 yet in our names of the days of the week. Thus, Tues- 
 day is derived from Tiu, the god of war (Lat. Mars) ; 
 Wednesday, from Woden, or Odin (Lat. Mercury) ; 
 Thursday, from Thunor, or Thor, the thunderer (Lat. 
 Jupiter) ; Friday, from Frea, or Friga (Lat. Venus) ; 
 Saturday, from Soeter, a marine deity, possibly of Scla- 
 vonic origin (Lat. Neptune). \ The principal deity not 
 thus commemorated is Balder, who corresponded very 
 nearly to the Greek Phoebus- Apollo. 
 
 The system of ancestral worship which we have indi- 
 
 older than corresponding words of Latin origin (c. g. fidUan, to baptize ; 
 gesamnuny, synagogue; derist, resurrection; leornitng-cniht, disciple; bin- 
 pel, parable ; ddcdbotncs, repentance), as " one proof, among others, of 
 the existence and purity of an early British church." 
 
 * See Pearson, v. i., p. 123. 
 
 f The contempt of the Saxons for the Kelts, or the hatred of the 
 Kelts for the Saxons, would account for the fact that we notice. The 
 Saxon would hardly be willing to accept the Gospel from the Kelt, or the 
 Kelt to give it to the Saxon. See Kcmble. v. ii., p. 356. 
 
 \ See McClcar's Conversion of the West : The English, p. 7 sq. ; Kem- 
 ble, v. ii., p. 327 sq. ; Palgrave, Hist, of Anglo-Saxons, p. 42.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 75 
 
 cated and which marked a distinct stage in the religious 
 development of all the Indo-European nations was su- 
 perseded in 596 A. D. by the acceptance of a nominal 
 Christianity. In the year named, Pope Gregory the Great 
 is said to have sent the monk Augustine to Britain as a 
 missionary. The wife of Ethelbert of Kent (sister of 
 Charibert, King of Paris) was already an adherent of the 
 church, and Kent was the first of the Saxon kingdoms 
 to accept Christianity. Essex soon followed ; and then 
 Deira* the change, in each case, beginning with the king f 
 and spreading, with not unnatural rapidity, to his cour- 
 tiers and dependents. The Christianization of Saxon 
 England, which was undertaken by Home, was facilitated 
 by the efforts of Irish missionaries in the same direction ; 
 and for some time there was a conflict for supremacy be- 
 tween the church of the south and east and the church of 
 the north and west the latter advocating substantial in- 
 dependence of the See of Rome. Britain was soon, how- 
 ever, brought into a condition of spiritual dependence on 
 the papacy, and maintained this position till the time of 
 Henry VIH. 
 
 Of course the Christianity thus implanted in Britain 
 was not of that pure and personal type which character- 
 izes Britain to-day ; but the Christianity of Britain to- 
 day is the lineal descendant of the Christianity then 
 implanted, and even Anglo-Saxon England can point to 
 such men as "the venerable Bede" and the "pious Al- 
 fred" as grandly exhibiting the true spirit of the Gospel. 
 Meanwhile, by the acceptance of even a nominal Chris- 
 tianity, the condition of the laboring classes was sensibly 
 ameliorated ; J England was brought into closer relation 
 with those civilizing agencies that existed on the conti- 
 
 * See Alexander Smith's Edwin of Dcira. 
 f See Kemblc, v. i., p. SCO. 
 \ See Pearson, v. ii., p. 57.
 
 76 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 ncnt ; and the Latin language and literature began at 
 once to contribute to the culture and refinement of the 
 people. 
 
 59. Characterize the Anglo-Saxon people describe their 
 dress, arms, occupation, food, etc., and indicate the general 
 condition of the island under Anglo-Saxon rule. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon people were honest and faithful, 
 kindly and energetic, but unimaginative and, indeed, 
 somewhat sluggish in intellect. They were chaste, and 
 held women in the highest honor, * but inclined to glut- 
 tony and drunkenness, f According to Pearson, \ they 
 evinced in no slight degree that cosmopolitan spirit which 
 is so striking a characteristic of their descendants. 
 
 The dress of the males was a Eoman tunic with added 
 sleeves making a garment something like the French 
 blouse, with breeches, shoes, and gloves of leather. In 
 the open air a cloak was worn. The principal weapons 
 were the sword (seax), knife (cnif), and spear (aesc, ash). 
 
 The chief occupation of the Anglo-Saxons was the 
 raising of cattle ; || although considerable attention was 
 paid to agriculture If rye, barley, wheat, and oats being 
 mentioned as among the products of the soil. Not much 
 attention was given to manufactures, nor were the mines 
 of the island extensively worked. There was a little 
 commerce wool being exported to the Netherlands 
 but there is no mention of either the export or import of 
 grain. 
 
 * See Lappenberg, v. ii., p. 310. The queen shared with her husband 
 the dignity of his office. 
 
 f So Pearson and Palgrave. 
 
 JV.L,p. 111. 
 
 See Barnes, Early England and the Saxon English. 
 
 || See Lappenberg, v. ii., p. 356 sq. 
 
 Tf The names of all our agricultural implements are (according to Lap- 
 penberg, v. ii., p. 359) of Anglo-Saxon, not of Keltic, origin.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 77 
 
 Beer was the common drink of the Anglo-Saxons ; 
 though some rude wines were made. Fish were abundant 
 and very highly prized. A large part of the island was 
 covered with forests, through which immense herds of 
 swine roved, and which furnished the people with abun- 
 dance of game. 
 
 These forests were also, however, the abodes of rob- 
 bers, who were probably less courteous and discrimi- 
 nating than the traditional Robin Hood ; and the con- 
 dition of the country was, at its best estate, somewhat 
 rude and unsettled. 
 
 60- When did the Danish invasion of Britain begin 
 what was the character of the conflict between the Danes 
 and Saxons and what the result ? 
 
 Hardly had the Anglo-Saxon power been consolidated 
 in Britain before it began to be rudely shaken by hostile 
 incursions from the shores of the Baltic. Indeed, the 
 Saxon Chronicle gives 787 forty years before Egbert be- 
 came King of England as the period when the Danish 
 invasion of Britain began. It is probable that at about 
 that time the assaults of the Danes assumed such magni- 
 tude as to attract serious attention. Doubtless, however, 
 for centuries before the date assigned, the islands, and 
 even the coasts, of Britain which lay over against Norway 
 and Denmark, had not only been subject to Danish raids, 
 but had received a considerable infusion of Scandinavian 
 blood from actual settlers. 
 
 As the Anglo-Saxons, freed from internal strife, set- 
 tled down, with something of Dutch stolidity, to the en- 
 joyment of their rich possessions, the assaults of the Danes 
 became more frequent and more formidable. Again and 
 again did the Anglo-Saxon rulers seek to avert the con- 
 quest which threatened them, by bribing the invader to 
 depart from their shores ; again and again notably un-
 
 78 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 der the leadership of Alfred, the grandson of Egbert 
 were the Danish pirates driven, in utter rout, to their 
 ships. But, whether defeated in battle or hired to de- 
 part, they left the shores of Britain only to return in 
 greater number and with intenser fury. 
 
 In 878, seven years after the accession of Alfred to the 
 throne of England, the Danes had gained a permanent 
 foothold in East Anglia, Northumberland, and the north 
 of Mercia. In 1016 Canute the Dane was crowned King 
 of all England. 
 
 61. What was the influence of the Danish conquest on 
 the Anglo-Saxon race and language ? 
 
 The Danish conquest of Britain tended to increase the 
 preponderance of the Teutonic over the Keltic race within 
 the island, and served, possibly,* to intensify that roving 
 disposition and that love of the sea which, in combination 
 with the Dutch thriftiness of the English, have made 
 them the first commercial people on the globe. 
 
 With reference to language, the influence of the con- 
 quest was not so marked as might have been expected. 
 The Anglo-Saxon and the Danish were both branches of 
 the same linguistic stock the Teutonic and the con- 
 querors, in this instance, assumed the language of the 
 conquered, the Anglo-Saxon being a written and the 
 Danish an unwritten speech. In assuming the language 
 of the conquered Anglo-Saxons, however, the Danes 
 doubtless contributed not a little to accelerate that change 
 from an inflectional to a positional syntax which had 
 begun in the consolidation of the Saxon dialects that were 
 planted in Britain, and which was completed by the Nor- 
 man conquest. 
 
 The Danish occupation of Britain has left, however, 
 very few perceptible traces in our English vocabulary. 
 
 * See Schcle DC Vere, Studies in English, pp. 23, 24.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 79 
 
 Its influence is most marked in the topographical nomen- 
 clature of middle Britain, where the Danish termination 
 -by supplants the equivalent Anglo-Saxon termination 
 -ham, in names of towns.* From the Danish ly, mean- 
 ing first a farm, and then a cluster of farms a hamlet, 
 we get not only such proper names as " Kugby," but such 
 words as "by-laws," "by-way." The English "earl" is 
 certainly to be referred to the Danish jarl ; the English 
 "hustings" is simply the Danish hustliiny (council); 
 the verbal form "are," and the tclic conjunction "till," 
 are of Danish origin ; and our " Old Scratch " is said to 
 be identical with the Norse jScrattc. f 
 
 62. Explain the origin of the Norman-French race and 
 language. 
 
 The Danes, like the Anglo-Saxons, were not long to 
 hold peaceful possession of Britain ; and in their case 
 their foes were destined to be those of their own house- 
 hold. In 913 Rolf (or Rollo) the Dane landed in the fer- 
 tile Gallic province of Neustria, of which he speedily made 
 himself master, and which became, thenceforth, the 
 Duchy of Normandy. In this instance, as in the case of 
 the conquest of England by their kinsmen, the Danes 
 
 * Cf. Morley, Writers before Chaucer, p. 440 sq. ; Latham, Ethnology 
 of British Islands, p. 246. The latter remarks that the extent of Danish 
 occupation (which was by no means commensurate with Danish authority) 
 may be traced by noting the presence or absence of this termination -by. 
 The infrequent termination -thorpc (village, cf. Ger. Dorf) is also Danish. 
 Also -thwaite (an isolated piece of land) ; -ness (a promontory) ; -ey (an 
 island) ; -vie (or -wich, a bay). See Worsaee's Danes and Norwegians in 
 England. The Lowland Scotch and Northern English show especial traces 
 of Danish influence in such words as " neve," " gar," " greet," " bairn," 
 "gill," "quern," etc. See Tancock, English Grammar, p. 11 sq., and 
 Morris, Outlines of English Accidence, p. 255. 
 
 The effect of the Danish occupation on the inflectional system of 
 northern Britain will be noticed hereafter. 
 
 f See Schele De Vere, ut supra, p. 96 sq.
 
 80 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 adopted the language and religion of the conquered peo- 
 ple. Thus Neustria, while becoming Norman in name 
 and Norman-French in race, remained essentially French 
 in language, in religion, and, to a considerable extent, in 
 the characteristics of its social life. 
 
 The basis of the language which was thenceforth to be 
 known as Norman-French, and was to enter, as one of the 
 constituent elements, into our modern English, was the 
 familiar, colloquial Latin spoken by the Roman legion- 
 aries who, in the time of Caesar, overran Keltic Gaul.* 
 Unlike Britain, Gaul had adopted the language of the 
 Latin soldiers and camp-followers, during the period that 
 she was held as a Roman province of course, with some 
 admixture of Keltic words and idioms and still more dis- 
 integration of the Latin inflectional and constructional 
 system, f When, in the seventh century, the Germanic 
 Franks conquered Gaul, they adopted the Kelticized 
 Latin which they found spoken there with some admix- 
 ture of Teutonic words and idioms, J and a still further 
 
 * For illustrations of the difference between the classical and collo- 
 quial Latin, see Brachct, Historical Grammar of French Tongue, p. 9. 
 E.g.: 
 
 Classical Latin. Colloquial Latin. French. 
 
 Ilebdomas, Septimana, Semaine. 
 
 Pugna, Battalia, Bataille. 
 
 Osculari, Basiari, Baiscr. 
 
 Verti, Tornarc, Tourner. 
 
 Urbs, Villa, Villc. 
 
 Jus, Directus, Droit. 
 
 Minae, Minaciac, Menace. 
 
 Edcre, Manducare, Manger. 
 
 f Braehet asserts (Grammar, p. 5) that " the influence of Keltic upon 
 French has been inappreciable ; " but no nation ever did or ever can 
 adopt a foreign language in its integrity. 
 
 \ Braehet (p. 11) says: "A great number of German words were 
 retained to designate those new institutions [social and political] which 
 the Franks brought in with them. Still more is this the case with war 
 terms. The Franks long kept to themselves, as a class, the war-like pro- 
 fession. This invasion touched the vocabulary only ; there are no traces
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 81 
 
 debasement of the structural peculiarities of the under- 
 lying Low Latin. Now, in the tenth century the Nor- 
 mans adopted the composite speech which they found 
 spoken in northern France with some admixture of 
 Scandinavian words and idioms and still further disin- 
 tegration of the inflectional and structural system ; though 
 the modification by the Normans of the language which 
 they adopted was confessedly very slight.* 
 
 The French language was, at this time, broken up into 
 several different dialects, which may be grouped under 
 two general heads. The langue (Toil, so called from the 
 word which signified " yes " (oil= Lat. illud), was spoken 
 in northern France, and was employed by the trouveres. 
 The langue d'oc (in which oc, from the Lat. hoc, signified 
 "yes") was spoken in southern France, and was the lan- 
 guage in which the troubadours composed their lays, f 
 The langue d'oc was probably the nobler language of 
 the two ; but the adoption of the langue d'oil by the 
 vigorous and aggressive Normans gave it a preeminence 
 which it has ever since maintained. 
 
 63. Explain and illustrate the characteristics of the Nor- 
 man-French language. 
 
 The character of the Norman-French language is suffi- 
 ciently indicated by the character of the French of to-day, 
 which is the lineal descendant of the langue d'oil, and 
 
 of German influence on French Syntax." Cf. Morris, Outlines of English 
 Accidence, p. 256. 
 
 * On this entire topic, see Whitney, Language and the Study of Lan- 
 guage, p. 169 ; and Chevallet, EOriginc et Formation dc la Langue Fran- 
 caise. 
 
 \ See Miss Preston's Troubadours and Trouveres. Of the langue d'oil, 
 there were four principal branches : 
 
 1. The dialect of Picardy. 
 
 2. " " " Normandy. 
 
 3. " " " the Isle of France. 
 
 4. " " " Burgundy.
 
 82 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 bears to it a resemblance quite as close as that between 
 the English of to-day and the English of Chaucer. I give 
 an illustrative specimen from the laws promulgated in 
 England by William the Conqueror.* It will be quite 
 intelligible to any one familiar with modern French. 
 
 " Ces sount les leis et les custumes que le rei Willams 
 grentat a tut le puple de Engleterre apres le conquest de 
 la terre, iciles mesmes qui li reis Edward, sun cosin, tint 
 devant lui. Co est a saveir," etc. 
 
 " Si home fait plaie a altre, e il deive otrei faire les 
 amendes, primarement li rende sun lechefe [A. S. leach- 
 fee], e li plaiez jurra sur seintz que par mes ne 1' pot faire, 
 ne pur haur si chier ne 1' fist." 
 
 I give another specimen of the old French from a de- 
 position made by Chaucer in 1386. 
 
 " Geffray Chaucer Esquier, del age de xl ans et plus, 
 armeez par xxvii ans, product par la partie de mons Rich- 
 ard Lescrope, jurrez et examinez. 
 
 " Demandez si lez armeez dazure ove un bende d'or 
 apperteignent, ou deyvent apperteigner au dit mons. 
 Richard, du droit et du heritage, dist : 
 
 " Que oil ; qar il lez ad veu estre armeez en Fraunce, 
 devant la ville de Betters, " f etc. 
 
 64. What was the ethnologic influence of the Norman 
 conquest ? 
 
 With reference to the race which was to be blended 
 with the Anglo-Saxon by the Norman conquest of Eng- 
 land, it was, as we have seen, predominantly Scandina- 
 vian, I though with a considerable admixture of Keltic, 
 
 * The date of these laws is about 1069. The specimens given are 
 from Chevallet, v. i., pp. 96, 105, who gives the entire code. 
 
 f See Tyrwhitt's Chaucer, p. xiii. 
 
 \ Freeman ( Growth of Eng. Const., p. 73) says : " The Norman was a 
 Dane, who, in his sojourn in Gaul, had put on a slight French varnish ; 
 and who came into England to be washed clean again."
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 83 
 
 Germanic, and even Latin elements. The ethnologic in- 
 fluence of the Norman conquest was therefore simply to 
 introduce new types and combinations of races already 
 represented on the soil of Britain.* And that to no very 
 great extent ; for the Norman conquest of England was a 
 conquest of the modern type. The victors overran and 
 held the land ; but they did not to any considerable ex- 
 tent people it. 
 
 65. What were the circumstances which led to the 
 Norman conquest ? 
 
 The circumstances that led to the Norman conquest of 
 Britain were very briefly as follows, f Ethelred, the 
 last Saxon King of Britain, married Emma, the sister of 
 Richard the second, Duke of Normandy. Canute, the 
 first Danish King of Britain, sought to unite the two 
 dynasties by marrying Ethelred's widow. On the death 
 of Canute, he was succeeded by his illegitimate son Harold, 
 who reigned for four years ; then by Hardicanute, the 
 son of Canute and Emma. On the death of Hardicanute, 
 Edward, the son of Ethelred and Emma, succeeded to the 
 
 * Nicholas, Pedigree of English People, p. 138, thinks the mass of 
 William's soldiery were possibly Kelts. 
 
 f The following table in which the Saxons are indicated by Roman 
 type, the Danes by Italics, the Normans by SMALL CAPS. will illustrate 
 the statements of the text and indicate how the Normans, before the 
 conquest, acquired a claim and even an effective hold on Britain. 
 
 Ethelred EMMA 978-1016. 
 
 Canute " 1016-1035. 
 
 Harold 1035-1039. 
 
 #ar</t-CANUTE 1039-1042. 
 
 Ed-WARD 1042-1066. 
 
 Harold 1066-1066. 
 
 WILLIAM 1066-1087. 
 
 Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror, was a lineal descendant 
 of Alfred the Great, so that William Rufus was of the old English royal 
 stock.
 
 84 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 throne. Though Saxon in lineage, at least on his father's 
 side, he had been educated in Normandy, and was Nor- 
 man, rather than Saxon, in his tastes and feelings. Dur- 
 ing his reign, the Norman- race and the Norman-French 
 language were almost as prominent in England as in the 
 period after the conquest. There is, indeed, substantial 
 truth in the statement which Scott, in his Ivanhoe, puts 
 into the mouth of Cedric the Saxon :* "We made these 
 strangers our bosom friends, our confidential servants ; 
 we borrowed their artists and their arts, and despised the 
 honest simplicity and hardihood with which our brave 
 ancestors supported themselves ; and we became enervated 
 by Norman arts long before we fell under Norman arms." 
 
 66. How and when was the Norman conquest accom- 
 plished ? 
 
 On the death of Edward, the English, disgusted with 
 what they had already seen of the Normans, elevated 
 Harold, a Saxon prince, to the throne. William, Duke 
 of Normandy, averring that Edward, his blood-relation, 
 had bequeathed to him the crown of England, and giving 
 to the invasion the aspect of a religious crusade, by insist- 
 ing that the kingdom was withheld from him in violation 
 of an oath taken upon sacred relics by Harold when a 
 prisoner in France, crossed the channel on the 28th of 
 September, 10GG, and, on the 14th of October, won the 
 decisive battle of Hastings (or Senlac), which made him 
 master of. all England. That England was so speedily 
 and so easily subjugated is probably due to the fact that 
 the landing of William simply reenforced a Norman- 
 French party which was already an influential element in 
 English politics just as the landing of William of Orange 
 reenforced the English Whigs in 1688. 
 
 * Cf. Palgravc, p. 280 sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 85 
 
 67. What was the immediate result of the Norman 
 conquest and when may a blending of conquerors and 
 conquered be regarded as having taken place ? 
 
 The immediate result of the Norman conquest was 
 rather to displace the Saxon nobility than to transform 
 the Saxon commonalty. To reward the prowess of Wil- 
 liam's needy followers, the castles of Britain were wrested 
 from their Saxon owners, who were either slain or driven 
 into exile. Thus the language, culture, arts, and arms of 
 the nobility speedily became Norman ; and at the same 
 time, as the Norman barons held their possessions as the 
 vassals of the king, and not by their own right, the feudal 
 system of which we have traced the beginning even in 
 Anglo-Saxon times was firmly fixed upon England. The 
 church, too, by the elevation of Norman-French prelates 
 to the principal positions, was thoroughly Normanized. 
 Meanwhile, the common people retained for many gener- 
 ations their Saxon speech and their Saxon modes of life. 
 Only as the mutual antipathy between conquerors and 
 conquered slowly wore away,* were the Normans and the 
 Saxons so amalgamated as to give rise to the English 
 speech and English people of the present day. The four- 
 teenth century when, during the third Edward's conti- 
 nental wars, the Norman leaders learned to rely on their 
 Saxon soldiers, and the Saxon soldiers learned to be proud 
 of their Norman leaders may, perhaps, be fixed upon as 
 the earliest period when the English nation, in the pres- 
 ent sense of that term, can be said to have had existence ; 
 and the fourteenth century, signalized by the glorious 
 victories of the Black Prince at Crecy and Poictiers, was 
 the age of Chaucer and Gower, of Langland and "Wiclif. 
 
 * Marsh (Origin and History, p. 139) thinks this antipathy has been 
 overrated, and was one of ranks rather than of races ; but an an- 
 tipathy of ranks must have been, in the circumstances, an antipathy 
 of races.
 
 86 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 68. What languages were spoken in Britain at the be- 
 ginning of the transition period from Anglo-Saxon to Eng- 
 lish? 
 
 At the beginning of that period of transition from 
 Anglo-Saxon to English upon which we have entered, 
 three languages were spoken in Britain. The Latin was 
 the language of the church whence it was only to be 
 uprooted by the Reformation. That the linguistic influ- 
 ence of the church during this period may not be under- 
 rated, it may be remembered that not less that 557 re- 
 ligious houses were established in England between the 
 conquest and the death of King John, each one of which 
 was, to some extent, a source of culture and the abode of 
 a Latin-speaking population. The Norman-French was, 
 meanwhile, the language of polite society, and also of the 
 courts of law, from which it was not banished till the 
 year 1362. The Anglo-Saxon, already in a state of decay, 
 was the language of boors and rustics. 
 
 69. What dialects of the Anglo-Saxon existed in Eng- 
 land before the Norman conquest, and what were the dia- 
 lectic peculiarities of a subsequent period? 
 
 Previous to the Norman conquest there had not been 
 absolute uniformity in the vernacular speech of Britain. 
 Two dialects, indeed, are to be distinctly recognized.* 
 
 (1) Tlie Southern, which was regular in its grammar, 
 showed no traces of Danish influence, and possessed a 
 somewhat extensive literature. 
 
 (2) The Northern, which differed somewhat in its in- 
 flectional system from the southern, showed some traces 
 of Danish influence, possessed but a scanty literature, 
 and, in some respects, approximated more nearly than 
 the southern to modern English. 
 
 After the Norman conquest (in the thirteenth and 
 
 * See Morris, Outlines of Enrj. Accidence, p. 41 sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 87 
 
 fourteenth centuries) we must recognize three English 
 dialects,* distinct from each other in many minor points, 
 but especially distinguished by the termination which 
 they employed in the present indicative plural of verbs : 
 
 1. Northern. Pros, indie, pi. in es. 
 
 2. Midland j -.J^ > Pros, indie, pi. in en. 
 
 3. Southern. Pres. indie, pi. in etli. 
 
 The southern dialect owing, perhaps, to the stability 
 which literary culture had given to the language of south- 
 ern Britain evinced a closer resemblance to the Anglo- 
 Saxon than either of the others, though coming in more 
 immediate contact with the Norman-French. 
 
 The northern dialect, owing to the scantiness of its 
 literature, was more susceptible to change ; and its imme- 
 
 * Higden (sec Morris, Specimens of Early English, p. 338) accounts 
 for these three dialects by the influence of the traditional Angles, Jutes, 
 and Saxons who settled England. Tancock accounts for them ( Gram- 
 mar, p. 11) by the influence of the Danes in the north, the Frisians in the 
 south, and a blending of the two in the midland counties. Shepherd 
 (Hitt. of Eny. Lang., p. 45) accounts for them by the disintegration of 
 the Anglo-Saxon through contact with the Norman-French. But the 
 southern dialect, which came most immediately in contact with the Nor- 
 man-French, evinces the most resemblance to the Anglo-Saxon that is, 
 is least "disintegrated." Tancock's theory is the most satisfactory, 
 though the Norman-French was, as he concedes (p. 25), not without its 
 influence. The fact that the dialects existed, in the germ, before the 
 Norman-French invasion, precludes our tracing them entirely to this 
 source. 
 
 See on this subject, Morris, Specimens of Early English, p. x sq. ; 
 Garnett, Philological Essays, p. 41 sq. and p. 147 sq. 
 
 Garnett would recognize as 0. E. dialects : 
 
 1. Southern and Standard English. Kent and Surrey. 
 
 2. Western English. 
 
 3. Mercian. 
 
 ( East. 
 
 4. Anglian \ Middle. 
 
 ( North. 
 6. Northumbrian.
 
 88 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 diate contact with the Danish developed in it marked 
 peculiarities, some of which are in the direction of mod- 
 ern English.* 
 
 The midland dialect, which was the most widely dis- 
 seminated of the three, naturally partook of some of the 
 peculiarities of the other two, though northern influence 
 seemed gradually to gain the ascendancy over it ; and it 
 gradually spread to the south, forcing the southern dia- 
 lect into the west of England. It was the East- Midland 
 dialect which, as employed by Orm, Kobert of Brunne, 
 Wiclif, Gower, and Chaucer, became the basis of our 
 modern English, f 
 
 It may be said, before dismissing this theme, that the 
 English language, as spoken in the mother-country, is still 
 characterized by dialectic peculiarities which are so great 
 that an interpreter is sometimes necessary when a witness 
 from the north or west of England appears before a Lon- 
 don jury. These dialectic peculiarities result, mainly, 
 from the lingering, in isolated localities, of languages an- 
 ciently spoken on the soil of Britain. Mr. Hughes says : 
 " The writer, when a boy, has heard an able Anglo-Saxon 
 scholar of that day maintain that if one of the churls 
 who fought at Ashdown with Alfred could have risen up 
 from his breezy grave under a barrow and walked down 
 the hill into Uffington, he would have been understood 
 without difficulty ly the peasantry" \ 
 
 * E. g. : The n of the A. S. infinitive ending is dropped ; the third pers. 
 Bing. ends in s instead of th ; arcn is used in the indie, pi. instead of synd 
 or beddh ; es is found instead of an as the genitive of feminine nouns ; 
 the definite article becomes the, instead of sc; thd (the modern "they") 
 supplants hi. 
 
 See Morris, Outlines of Eng. Accidence, p. 41 sq. Cf. Specimens 
 of Early English, p. xiii sq. 
 
 f See Morris, ut sup., pp. 46, 47 ; Oliphant, Sources of Standard Eng- 
 lish, passim; and Morley, Eng. Writers, v. ii., P. 1, p. 337. 
 
 | Life of Alfred, p. 15. Cf. Bosworth, Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, p. 
 xxvi sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 89 
 
 Angus * recognizes the following modern English dia- 
 lects, and notes their differences in pronunciation : 
 
 1. The Northern and Lowland Scotch. 
 
 2. The Irish (not the Erse). 
 
 3. The London and South-Eastern. 
 
 4. The South- Western. 
 
 5. The Midland. 
 
 70. Explain the influence of contact with the Norman- 
 French on the structure of the Anglo-Saxon. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon and the Norman-French languages 
 at first held themselves as far apart as possible. But com- 
 plete isolation was out of the question. There must be 
 some medium of communication between the victors and 
 vanquished ; and, since the vanquished could not, or 
 would not, learn Norman-French, the victors must, and 
 did, learn Anglo-Saxon. But they learned it as one 
 always learns a language that he despises. They paid no 
 more attention to the inflections and structural peculiari- 
 ties of the subject tongue than was absolutely necessary 
 to make themselves understood by those whom they ad- 
 dressed. They learned the roots (e. g., they substituted 
 luf for aim Latin, amare when they talked with their 
 Anglo-Saxon subjects) ; but they did not much mind the 
 terminations. Of course, the influence of their example 
 tended to hasten that process of inflectional disintegra- 
 tion which had, even before the conquest, made no in- 
 considerable progress in Anglo-Saxon speech, f 
 
 * Handbook of English Tongue, p. 117. For illustrative specimens 
 of these modern English dialects, see Garnett, Philological .Essays, p. 75 ; 
 Halliwell's Glossary (introduction) ; Tennyson's Northern Farmer (both 
 the " old " and " new " style). 
 
 f We may ascribe to Norman-French influence : the prominence of 
 our plurals in s ; our twofold method of comparing adjectives (the An- 
 glo-Saxon contributing terminal comparison; the Norman-French, com-
 
 90 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 This was the first and, indeed, the most decided effect 
 of contact between the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman- 
 French. It is as the result of this attrition of inflec- 
 tions and constructions, begun at the conquest and car- 
 ried on for three centuries, that our positional English 
 has been developed out of the inflectional Anglo-Saxon. 
 The Norman-French has not only enriched the vocab- 
 ulary, but helped to mold and transform the structure 
 of our mother tongue a fact which is too frequently 
 overlooked. 
 
 71. To what degree were Herman-French words intro- 
 duced into the vocabulary of the English in the eleventh 
 century ; in the fourteenth ? 
 
 From the very first, there was, of course, an infusion 
 of Norman-French words into the speech which grew up 
 between the conquerors and the conquered ; but this was 
 so slight that, in the literature of Britain 200 years after 
 the conquest, not more than one word in eight was de- 
 rived, either directly or indirectly, from the Latin tongue.* 
 Indeed, in the first half of the fourteenth century, when 
 the French language was attaining that social and politi- 
 cal preeminence which it long maintained on the continent 
 of Europe, more Latin-French words were engrafted upon 
 the English language than in the two centuries preced- 
 ing, f 
 
 parison by prefixing more and most) ; to as a sign of the infinitive mood ; 
 and numerous modifications of verb-inflection which are illustrated by 
 Marsh, Origin and Hist, of the Eng. Lang., pp. 157, 258, 47. Cf. the 
 author's Art of Expression, pp. 62, 23, 50. Tancock (Grammar, p. 39) 
 traces to this source abandonment of " constructive gender," and (p. 25) 
 a general softening of the pronunciation of southern Britain. 
 
 * See Marsh, p. 140. Morris (Outlines of Eng. Accidence, p. 337 sq.) 
 gives a list of the words of Norman-French origin in the English language 
 before 1 300, with the works in which they are found. 
 
 f See Marsh, p. 266.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. <J1 
 
 72. What is the character and value of the Norman- 
 French additions to the vocabulary of the English ? 
 
 The tendency of our borrowings from the Norman- 
 French was : 
 
 (1.) To supply the English language with abstract 
 terms, which the Anglo-Saxon greatly lacked. 
 
 (2. ) To endow it with a faculty of forming compounds 
 and derivatives which faculty the Anglo-Saxon had 
 measurably lost in the process of disintegration by natu- 
 ralizing a system of foreign terminations.* 
 
 (3. ) To furnish the English language with a rare stock 
 of synonymous, or nearly synonymous, words, f 
 
 (4. ) To temper the homely strength and heartiness of 
 our Saxon speech with something of sonorous dignity and 
 graceful flexibility. J 
 
 There is great danger at the present day when atten- 
 tion is for the first time called to the importance of dis- 
 tinctively English studies of underrating the value of 
 
 * The German freely forms such compounds as Saucrstoff and Fern- 
 Kprccher ; but Sour-stuff and Far-speaker seem to us barbarous, and we 
 resort to the classical " Oxygen " and " Telephone." 
 
 f Thus a thought may be expressed mainly in words that come to us 
 directly or indirectly from the Latin ; or, it may be expressed almost 
 exclusively in words of English origin. The first method of expression 
 will be " caviare to the general ; " the second method the common people 
 will appreciate and understand. Those who framed the liturgy of the 
 Church of England employed both vocabularies (in a way that bordered 
 on tautology) in order that the offices of the church might be understood 
 and felt by high and low. Thus we have : " acknowledge and confess," 
 " dissemble nor cloak," " assemble and meet together." Cf. Morris, ut 
 supra, p. 39. 
 
 \ What Hookham Frere satirizes as " Long-tailed words in -osity and 
 -ation " however absurd when profusely indulged in may be just what 
 is needed by a predominantly monosyllabic language. The Anglo-Saxon 
 tongue was, as we have seen, largely monosyllabic ; and, but for a con- 
 siderable infusion of the Norman-French, the English would be more so 
 than it is.
 
 92 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 the Norman-French additions to our vocabulary. There 
 is, confessedly, in words of Anglo-Saxon origin, a pith, a 
 tenderness, a homely power over the Anglo-Saxon heart, 
 which words that come to us directly or indirectly from 
 the Latin, can never attain.* Doubtless, as has already 
 been said, when we are thoroughly in earnest in any direc- 
 tion, when we are simple, natural, and entirely ourselves, 
 our vocabulary will be likely to be made up very largely 
 of words of Anglo-Saxon origin ; but the miserable affec- 
 tation of using only Anglo-Saxon words can hardly be 
 sufficiently deprecated. Indeed, it is very difficult for 
 the ordinary student to tell what are Anglo-Saxon words. 
 He certainly can not get at them by Whately's short 
 method, of subtracting from the vocabulary all words 
 which he knows to be of classical origin. As Marsh very 
 justly says : " Truly able writers select their words, not 
 with reference to their historical origin, but solely for 
 the sake of their adaptation to the effect aimed at on the 
 mind of reader or hearer ; and he who deliberately uses 
 an Anglo-Saxon instead of a more expressive Eomance 
 word, is as much a pedant as if his diction were composed, 
 in the largest proportion, of words borrowed from the 
 vocabulary of Eome." f 
 
 * See Herbert Spencer, Essay on Style, p. 12, where the superiority 
 of " non-Latin " words is argued on the grounds of : 
 
 (1) Early association. 
 
 (2) Brevity. 
 
 (3) Imitative character. 
 
 Compare Henry Rogers's article in the Edinburgh Review, vol. Ixx., 
 p. 221. 
 
 f See Topic 44. Compare Prof. A. S. Hill's Principles of Rhetoric, 
 p. 3 ; Prof. Nichol's English Composition, p. 38. In making up the mag- 
 nificent percentages of Anglo-Saxon words used by our standard writers, 
 no account is taken of the fact that the Anglo-Saxon words are largely 
 binders and auxiliaries, which must be frequently repeated, but in which 
 the main significance of a sentence may not reside. For instance : in the 
 sentence that we borrow from Marsh there are 70 words. Of these, 47
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 93 
 
 It should bo borne in mind thc f it the Norman-French 
 conquest was needed according to both Marsh* and 
 Morley f to infuse new life into an exhausted race. The 
 language, no less than the race, needed a transfusion of 
 vitality ; and if the English speech of to-day is superior to 
 the Dutch, the cause of that superiority is mainly to be 
 found in the Norman conquest. As the result of that 
 conquest, " The English has an ancestry unparalleled in 
 the history of languages. It is heir to all the greatness 
 and all the power which represent the two ruling races of 
 Christend'om the Romance and the Germanic." J 
 
 73. Characterize, in general terms, the literature of 
 the transition period from Anglo-Saxon to English. 
 
 It remains for us to glance at some of the most promi- 
 nent literary monuments of the formative period of our 
 English speech a period which may be divided into : 
 
 1. The Semi-Saxon, extending from 10GG to 1250. 
 
 2. The Early English, " " 1250 to 1350. 
 
 are of English origin ; 19, of classical ; and 4 must be referred, in a gen- 
 eral way, to an Indo-European source. Of the words, however, if we do 
 not count repetitions, only 32 are distinctively English ; and we print by 
 themselves the words of English and those of classical origin (crediting 
 to either side the Indo-European words), to show which really embody the 
 gist of the passage. 
 
 ENGLISH : " Truly writers their words not with to their but for the sake 
 of their to the at on the mind of reader or hearer ; and he who an Anglo- 
 Saxon instead of a more word is as much a as if his were in the largest 
 of words borrowed from the of." 
 
 CLASSICAL : " Able select reference historical origin, solely adaptation 
 effect aimed mind ; who deliberately uses expressive Romance is pedant 
 diction composed in proportion vocabulary Rome." 
 
 Cf. Morris, ut supra, p. 34 sq., where may be found a classified list of 
 the English and Romanic elements in our composite speech. 
 
 * Origin and History, p. 106. 
 
 f Winters before Chaucer, p. 8. 
 
 \ Schcle De Vere, Studies in English, p. 2.
 
 94 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 Throughout both these periods, the influence of Nor- 
 man-French culture was paramount in England ; and 
 the literature of the mother-country was fashioned after 
 models brought across the channel in the train of the 
 conqueror. 
 
 74. Indicate the nature and linguistic peculiarities of 
 
 (1) The Brut of Layamon. 
 
 (2) The Ancren Riwle. 
 
 (3) The Ormulum. 
 
 (4) The Surtees Psalter. 
 
 (1) I mention first the Brut of Layamon,* a versified 
 chronicle of the early history of Britain, commencing with 
 the destruction of Troy and the flight of ^Eneas, from 
 whom sprung Brutus, the mythical founder of the British 
 monarchy. Layamon is largely indebted to the Brut of 
 "VVace, who wrote in Norman-French, and who, in turn, 
 derived his material from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Latin 
 History of Britain. But the "preost Layamon ihoten" 
 makes no inconsiderable additions to the matter embodied 
 by the authorities whom he professes to follow ; and his 
 additions are by far the ablest and most spirited portions 
 of his work. 
 
 The oldest manuscript of this poem (certainly not later 
 than the beginning of the twelfth century) shows the fol- 
 lowing traces of change in the language. Plurals in s are 
 very common. " Of" is used with the genitive, which is 
 also resolved into a post-positive "his" a form which 
 extensively prevailed in the second half of the seven- 
 teenth century. f "To" is prefixed to the simple infini- 
 
 * Cf. Morley, p. 614 sq. ; Marsh, p. 154 sq. A brief extract from 
 this poem is given in Chambcrs's Cyclopcedia of English Literature. Cf. 
 Corson's Handbook of Anglo-Saxon and Earl;/ 'English, pp. 121, 543, 
 where the student will find both an earlier and later text indicated and 
 exemplified. 
 
 f E. g. : " John his book." Sec the author's Art of Expression, p. 19.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 95 
 
 tivc.* " Will " and " shall " are used as proper auxiliaries, f 
 The modern wh supplants the older and more rational 
 Jiw, in such words as "hwa" (who) and "hwil" (while). 
 With reference to its poetic garb, Layamon's Brut is a 
 strange blending of the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman- 
 French metrical systems the poem being now unrhymed 
 and alliterative, and again, rhymed and disposed in reg- 
 ular feet. In grammatical structure, it approaches very 
 closely to our positional English, though retaining the 
 Anglo-Saxon inflectional forms. 
 
 (2) The Ancren Riwle,\ or Rule of Anchorites a 
 code of monastic precepts drawn up in prose is to be 
 assigned to about the same period as Layamon's Brut. 
 The spelling is more ancient than that of Layamon, but 
 the constructions are full as modern. It exhibits a larger 
 percentage of Norman-French and Latin words, as we 
 should naturally expect both from the theme and the 
 probable author. 
 
 (3) The Ormulum (" So nemned forrthi thatt Orrm 
 itt wrohhte") consists of a metrical paraphrase of the 
 Scriptures with homiletic comments. It is a mere frag- 
 ment of barely 20,000 lines but probably exists in the 
 original manuscript. Orm paid especial attention to or- 
 thography and pronunciation in regard to which he 
 seems to have had some hobbies (like the doubling of a 
 consonant after every short vowel) that possibly injured 
 the popularity of his work, though they invest it with 
 especial interest for the present generation, since they 
 afford us a clew to the pronunciation of his time. 
 
 Orm's book shows traces of Scandinavian influence 
 being written in the East-Midland dialect ; but it is, on 
 
 * Sec Art of Expression, p. 23. 
 
 ) See Art of Expression, p. 38. 
 
 \ See Marsh, p. 169 sq. ; Corson, p. 155. 
 
 See Marsh, p. 177 sq. ; Morley, p. 636 sq. ; Corson, p. 169 sq.
 
 96 THE ENGLISII LANGUAGE 
 
 the whole, a closer approximation to our modern English 
 than either of those previously mentioned. 
 
 One of the most noticeable linguistic features of the 
 book is the softening to i of the Anglo-Saxon prefix "ge," 
 which is said to have formerly been used in about 7,000 
 English words, but has now almost entirely disappeared 
 from our language.* 
 
 (4) To this period we should probably assign the 
 metrical version of the Psalms published by the Surtees 
 Society,! in which the Danish "ere" first supplants the 
 Anglo-Saxon "synd or syndon," as the present indicative 
 plural of the verb "to be ;" and the modern termination 
 in s takes the place of the old termination in tTi, in the 
 personal endings of the regular verb. 
 
 75. When does the Semi-Saxon period in English lit- 
 erature cease, and the Early English period begin, accord- 
 ing to the best authorities ; and what document marks the 
 dividing line ? 
 
 We may perhaps regard the Surtees Psalter as tho 
 latest monument of the Semi-Saxon period. Craik and 
 Marsh agree with the London Philological Society in fix- 
 ing 1250 A. D. as the time when the Early English period 
 begins, that date being determined by the fact that the 
 inflectional syntax of the Anglo-Saxon had then fairly 
 given place to the positional syntax of the modern Eng- 
 
 * " Gc " was formerly prefixed not only to the past participle of the 
 strong conjugation, but to the infinitive of the verb and indeed as 
 euphony dictated to other parts of speech. Thus we have : 
 
 Geholden, beholden, i. e., " held." (No connection with behold.) 
 
 Gccfejicd, yclept. 
 
 Lcttan and yelettan, to hinder, to " let." 
 
 Lytlian and gch/llian, to belittle. 
 
 Maere and gemaere, a " mere," a boundary. 
 
 Letiful and geledfvl, lawful. 
 
 Gewiss (cf. Germ.) becomes in Shaksperc " I wis," as in the Or- 
 mulum. 
 
 f Sec Marsh, p. 216 sq.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 97 
 
 lish. A short proclamation, issued by Henry III. in 1258, 
 indicates the condition of the language at this period. I 
 give a brief extract from this proclamation, from which 
 it will be seen that, though many strange words, and the 
 relics of many useless inflectional forms, occur in this 
 document, the structure is, throughout, thoroughly Eng- 
 lish.* 
 
 " Henr ' thurg Gode's f ultume King on Engleneloande, 
 Ihoaverd on Irloand, duk' on Norm, on A<|uitain, and 
 eorl on Aniow, send igretinge to all hise halde, ilaarde 
 and ilaewede, on Huntendon schir'. Thaat witen ge wel 
 alle, etc., etc. 
 
 " Witnesse usselven set Lundcn' thane egtetenthe day 
 on the monthe of Octobr' in the two and fowertigthe 
 geare of ure cruniuge." 
 
 76. Enumerate and characterize some of the poems of the 
 Early English period. 
 
 "With 1250, then, the study of English, in the modern 
 acceptation of the term, begins. To the Early English 
 period (1250-1350), and to a time not much later than 
 that of the proclamation just given, belongs a group of 
 poems formed after Norman-French models which 
 possess slight literary or historic value, but are of inter- 
 est as illustrating the gradual approximation of the lan- 
 guage to its present form. 
 
 Foremost among these is The Owl and the Nightin- 
 gale, f a rhyming poem of 1,800 lines, for which we may, 
 
 * The proclamation is given in full in Corson, Handbook of Anglo- 
 Saxon and Early English, p. 200, and Earle, Philology of the English 
 Tongue, p. 70. Neither Earle nor Craik regards this proclamation as a 
 typical specimen of the English of the period ; but Marsh ( Origin and 
 History, p. 189 sq.) is of a very different opinion. 
 
 f See Marsh, p. 205 sq. Morris's Specimens of Earli/ English will 
 afford sufficient illustrations of this poem and the other poems named in 
 this connection. 
 5
 
 98 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 apparently, claim the rare merit of native origin, as it is 
 not known to exist in any foreign garb. Master Nicholas 
 de Guilford, who is appealed to in the poem to settle a 
 somewhat tedious and not over delicate controversy, re- 
 specting the vocal powers of the owl and the nightingale, 
 is supposed to be the author. The poem is described, by 
 those who affect an admiration for everything that is Early 
 English, as " a sweet British pastoral j " but, to my mind, 
 its literary merit is very slight. 
 
 With this poem may be associated the Ramance of 
 Alisaundre* and the Littell Geste of Kyng Horn\ 
 which I shall content myself with merely naming. 
 
 The Story of Havelok the Dane J belongs to the same 
 group of poems, but is far superior, in interest, sig- 
 nificance, and poetic beauty, to either of the poems already 
 mentioned, and is, indeed, well worthy of the student's 
 attention. The story of Havelok is an Anglo-Danish 
 romance which, in its present form, is probably a trans- 
 lation from a French poem of the twelfth century. 
 Havelok, the orphan child of a Danish king, is, by his 
 treacherous guardian, given to a fisherman named Grim, 
 to be drowned. Warned by miraculous portents, Grim 
 preserves the child and flees with him to England, where 
 he lands on the coast of Lincolnshire and founds the 
 town of Grimsby. An English princess is compelled, by 
 guardians as false as those of Havelok, to marry the fish- 
 erman's foster-child, whose royal descent is thereupon 
 revealed, and he reconquers the ancestral possessions of 
 his wife and himself. The simple plot of the poem is, it 
 
 * See Marsh, pp. 198-204 j Morley, p. 668 sq. 
 
 f See Marsh, p. 211 sq. Geste story (res yesta), cf. 6fcsta Roma- 
 nonim. 
 
 \ See Morley, p. 459 sq. The English of the ffavelok, as reprinted by 
 the Early English Text Society, will not be found difficult, and the poem 
 is accompanied by a copious marginal gloss, which will enable one to 
 follow the thread of the story.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 99 
 
 will bo seen, not devoid of interest, and it is developed 
 with poetic taste and feeling ; while the poem abounds in 
 suggestive hints respecting the manners and customs of 
 the period. 
 
 77. Mention the most eminent historical writers of the 
 period. 
 
 Of greater intrinsic value than even the Havclok is 
 the Rhymed Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester, who treats 
 of the history of England from the siege of Troy (with 
 which all the old Chroniclers began) to the death of 
 Henry III. (1272). The later portions of the work may 
 fairly aspire to the dignity of history, the author's ac- 
 count of the battle of Hastings * being especially clear 
 and vivid. This work together with the Legends of the 
 Saints, by the same author was probably written about 
 1300. Though belonging to so late a period, however, 
 we find in the writings of this monkish chronicler only 
 about five per cent, of Bomance words ; yet many words 
 of Latin origin are first introduced to our language by him. 
 
 Robert Manning of Brunne, who is next in order 
 among the Early English writers and, like Robert of 
 Gloucester, a writer of Chronicles uses far more Ro- 
 mance words than his immediate predecessor. His chron- 
 
 * Reproduced in Morris's Specimens see especially p. 69 for a pas- 
 sage which illustrates the linguistic condition of the country in Robert's 
 time : 
 
 " Thus com lo Engelond in to Normandies bond. 
 And the Normans ne couthe speke tho bote hor owe speche, 
 And speke french as hii dude at om and hor children dude also teche. 
 So that heiemen of this lond, that of hor blod come, 
 Holdeth alle thulke speche that hii of horn nome. 
 Vor bote a man conne frenns, me tclth of him lute. 
 Ac lowe men holdeth to engliss and to hor owe speche yute. 
 Ich wene ther ne beth in al the world contreycs none, 
 That ne holdeth to hor owe speche bote Engelond one. 
 Ac wel me wot vor to conne bothe wel it is, 
 Vor the more that a mon can, the more wurthe he is."
 
 100 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 icles, which are founded upon the Brut of Wace and an 
 Anglo-Norman history by Peter de Langtoft, are very 
 voluminous, but not very valuable. 
 
 78. What dividing line in the literary history of Eng- 
 land may be marked by the year 1350 ; and what classi- 
 fication of the period that follows may be adopted? 
 
 Thus far we have traced the history of the language, 
 rather than the literature, of our forefathers, recognizing 
 three periods : 
 
 1. The Anglo-Saxon, 650-10G6. 
 
 2. The Semi-Saxon, 1066-1250. 
 
 3. The Early English, 1250-1350. 
 
 We enter now upon a new period, which is one of lin- 
 guistic importance indeed, for it is the period during 
 which Chaucer and his contemporaries gave to the East 
 Midland dialect breadth and regularity, and made it the 
 literary language of all England. It is, however, a period 
 of greater literary than linguistic significance, since in it 
 we may trace the beginnings of our English literature as 
 it exists to-day. From 1350 onward the history of the 
 English language is subordinate in importance, and infe- 
 rior in interest, to the history of English literature. We 
 propose, then, to forsake our linguistic basis of classifica- 
 tion, and would suggest the following divisions of the 
 Literary History of England, from 1350 to our own day : 
 
 I. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD, extending from 1350 to 
 1474, that is, from Chaucer, the father of distinctively 
 English literature, to William Caxton, the first English 
 printer. Typical authors : in prose, Mandeville and 
 Wiclif ; in poetry, Langlandc ("Piers Plowman") and 
 Chaucer. 
 
 II. THE PERIOD OF THE KENAISSANCE (Tainc), or 
 THE PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE (Morley), extend-
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 101 
 
 ing from 1474 to 1GGO that is, from the introduction of 
 printing to the development of Frencli influence atten- 
 dant on the restoration of the Stuarts. This period 
 may be subdivided into three : 
 
 1. From 1474 to 1558, or from the introduction of 
 printing to the period of political and religious stability, 
 and consequent literary activity, ushered in by the acces- 
 sion of Elizabeth covering the anticipatory movements 
 of a new literary life. The typical writers of the period 
 arc : Tyndale, who represents the religious side, Surrey, 
 who represents the secular side, of the English renais- 
 sance. 
 
 2. From 1558 to 1625, or from the accession of Eliza- 
 beth to the death of James I., being the great creative 
 period in English literature. The typical writers of the 
 period are : in poetry, Spenser ; in the drama, Shakspere ; 
 in prose, Bacon. 
 
 3. From 1625 to 1660, or from the death of James I. 
 to the restoration of the Stuarts, being the period of Puri- 
 tan ascendancy. The typical writer of the period is Mil- 
 ton. 
 
 III. "TnE CLASSIC AGE" (Taine), or "THE PERIOD 
 OF FRENCH INFLUENCE" (Morley), from 1660 to 1789 
 that is, from the restoration to the French revolution. 
 Typical writers of the period are : in poetry, Dryden and 
 Pope ; in prose, Addison, Fielding, and Johnson. * 
 
 IV. "THE PERIOD OF MODERN LIFE" (Tainc), or 
 " THE PERIOD OF ENGLISH POPULAR INFLUENCE " (Mor- 
 ley), extending from 1789 when the English mind was 
 emancipated, by the French revolution, from the fetters 
 of a false classicism to our own day. Typical writers 
 are : in poetry, Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth ; in prose, 
 Dickens, Macaulay, Tyndall. 
 
 * By " typical writers " we do not necessarily mean the best writers, 
 but the most characteristic.
 
 102 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 79. Characterize the formative period in English lit- 
 erature. 
 
 The formative period of English literature extending 
 from- 1350 to 1474 was, as has already been intimated, a 
 period of national consolidation. During the latter half of 
 the fourteenth century, that amalgamation of the Saxon- 
 English and Norman-French which gave to England a co- 
 herent nationality was consummated ; and it became evi- 
 dent that the destiny of the English people was to be worked 
 out in the island of Britain, rather than on the mainland. 
 As the result of this development of national life, there 
 was a corresponding development of literary life ; and 
 that literary life was, both in the language which it em- 
 ployed and in its types of literary composition, neither Nor- 
 man nor Saxon, but English. I mention, briefly, the 
 most characteristic and significant authors of the period. 
 
 80. What is the character of Sir John Mandeville' s 
 writings ; and what distinction does he deserve ? 
 
 First in point of time is Sir John Mandeville, whose 
 book of travels, written in 1356, wears a more familiar 
 look than any work which I have previously mentioned, 
 and may fairly be regarded as marking a new era in the 
 language and literature. Perhaps it seems thus familiar 
 because it embodies (though a simple narrative of travel 
 and adventure, designed for, and evidently appreciated 
 by, the common people) twice as many words of Latin 
 origin as any author had previously employed ; for, un- 
 fortunately, a good many of us are more familiar with 
 the Latin than the English side of our mother-tongue.* 
 Mandeville himself tells us that his book was first written 
 
 * Some of the Romance words introduced by Mandeville are in very 
 familiar use at the present day. E. g. : Because, certain, nation, people, 
 plainly, promise, pronounce, visit, cause, cover, deny, gum, join, money, 
 officer, quantity, rebellion, receive, region, return, search, soldier, stranger. 
 See Marsh, Origin and History, p. 269.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 103 
 
 in Latin ; then translated into French ; then, into Eng- 
 lish. In construction and style it approximates very 
 closely to the English of to-day; and Mandeville may 
 fairly be called the earliest English prose author. . Ilia 
 book is such an absurd mixture of truth and falsehood 
 that it has no value as a book of travels ; but it is on that 
 account none the less interesting to the student of lan- 
 guage and none the less amusing to the general reader. 
 
 81. What interest and importance attaches to the lit- 
 erary labors of John Wiclif ? 
 
 Belonging to the same generation with Mandevillo 
 was another prose writer whose reputation has been more 
 extended, and, from the nature of the service that he ren- 
 dered to humanity, is likely to be more enduring. I 
 refer to John Wiclif born 1324, died 1384 who was 
 Professor of Theology at Balliol College, Oxford, but 
 espoused opinions at variance with those of the Latin 
 church and gave the English people a translation, from 
 the Latin, of the entire Bible and a very respectable 
 translation too.* It was not until 1731 that his New 
 Testament was printed, and his Old Testament has only 
 within the present generation been issued from the press ; 
 but his books were extensively circulated in manuscript, 
 and the influence of his doctrinal teachings was immediate 
 and great. Nearly fifty years after Wiclif's death, his 
 bones were, by order of the Council of Constance, disin- 
 terred, burned, and cast into a brook near his burial-place. 
 " This brook," says Thomas Fuller, "hath conveyed his 
 ashes into the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the Severn 
 into the narrow seas, and they into the main ocean ; and 
 thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, 
 which is now dispersed all the world over." 
 
 * See Anderson, Annals of the English Bible ; Mrs. Conant, Transla- 
 tors of the Uible ; Westcott, History of Hie English B'Me*
 
 104 TIIE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 82. Characterize the writings of Lawrence Minot and 
 John Gower. 
 
 This formative period was more prolific in poetry 
 than in prose as was natural enough, since, as a rule, 
 national thought earliest finds expression in metrical op- 
 position.* 
 
 Lawrence Minot (who lived and wrote about the mid- 
 dle of the fourteenth century) composed ten poems cele- 
 brating the exploits of Edward III., in which he at- 
 ^empted to combine Norman-French rhymes with Anglo- 
 Saxon alliteration. His verses are sometimes spirited, 
 but never especially significant, f 
 
 John Gower born 1325, died 1408 was a very volu- 
 minous, very correct, but not very gifted poet. He is the 
 author of three elaborate works : the Speculum Meditan- 
 tis, written in French ; the Vox Clamantis, written in 
 Latin ; the Confessio Amantis, written in English. 
 Though written in the vernacular tongue, the Confessio 
 Amantis is thoroughly Norman-French in style ; and 
 Gower makes no considerable contribution either to the 
 language or the literature of his country. J 
 
 83. What is known concerning the author of the 
 "Vision of Piers Plowman?" 
 
 We come now to one of the most remarkable poems in 
 the early literature of any land : The Vision of William 
 [Langlande] concerning Peter the Ploivman ; and his 
 Vision concerning Do-wel, Do-let, and Do-best a poem 
 which, owing to the surpassing merit of the Canterbury 
 Tales, has not until recently received the attention that 
 it deserved. 
 
 * See Do Quincey, Historical Essays, v. ii., p. 109. 
 f Sec Marsh, p. 277 sq., Morris, Specimens, p. 184 sq. 
 \ See Marsh, p. 432 sq. ; Morris, p. 307 sq. ; but especially Lowell, 
 My Study Windoios, pp. 258, 264.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 105 
 
 The author of this poem is not certainly known ; but 
 we know from the poem itself that he was born about 
 1332 at Cleobury-Mortimer in Shropshire ; that, shortly 
 after his poem was first published, he removed to London, 
 and dwelt for a long time in Cornhill, with hi.s wife 
 Kitte and his daughter Calote ; that he Avas very poor, 
 very tall and slim, and wore the clerical tonsure prob- 
 ably as having taken minor orders. From his evident 
 familiarity with legal terms it has been inferred that he 
 supported himself partly by transcribing legal documents. 
 lie tells us himself that his father made a clerk [that is, a 
 scholar] of him ; and he is evidently well acquainted with 
 the Latin literature of the period. 
 
 84. In what three forms does the Vision of Piers Plow- 
 man exist? 
 
 The popularity of this poem is attested by the fact 
 that it is extant in forty-three manuscripts, which arc 
 reducible to three classes : 
 
 A. A rough draft, published about 13 G2, and contain- 
 ing only 2,567 lines. The vision concerning Peter the 
 Plowman, and the vision concerning Do-wel, Do-bet, 
 and Do-best are, in the A text, kept entirely distinct. 
 The style is rapid, fresh, and vigorous ; and this first 
 draft is, to my mind, by far the most attractive version 
 of the poem.* 
 
 B. The author had killed himself off at the close of 
 the earlier version ; but the popularity of the poem 
 tempted him to rise from the dead fifteen years later 
 (when the country was disquieted by the death of the 
 Black Prince), and publish a version of his poem three 
 times as long as that which had preceded it.f The ad- 
 
 * Morris (Specimens of Early English, pp. 2-19-290) gives a long ex- 
 tract from this text. 
 
 f Skeat gives us, in his admirably edited "Clarendon Press Piers 
 Plowman" the whole of the first vision in the B text, or text of 1377.
 
 106 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 ditions made in the B text are exceedingly good, mani- 
 festing originality and freedom of thought ; but there is 
 some loss of rapidity and vigor of movement. The motto 
 of this version is : Vce terrce ubi rex puer est. 
 
 C. In 1380 or even later the author embodied the 
 results of further revision in a still more extended version, 
 the additions betraying a tendency to diffuseness and a 
 love of theologic subtlities.* 
 
 85. What is the nature and value of the Vision of 
 Piers Plowman? 
 
 The poem is alliterative and unrhymed thus con- 
 forming to the Anglo-Saxon rather than to the Norman-' 
 French ideal ; and it is to be noted that its author 
 though apparently acquainted with Eomance literature, 
 and though -writing for the common people uses about 
 as many Eomance words as does Chaucer, who was for 
 years attached to the royal family. 
 
 A clear and sufficiently full analysis of the poem will 
 be found in the "Clarendon Press Piers Plowman." \ 
 It is enough here to say that the Vision concerning Peter 
 Plowman is a homely and vigorous satire (largely in the 
 form of an allegory) upon the abuses of the time espe- 
 cially its religious abuses. Its Peter is a poor, unlettered 
 peasant, who, guided by conscience and native good sense, 
 
 * Skcat thinks we are indebted to the same author for a remarkable 
 poem on the deposition of Richard II., in 1399; but imputes Pierce the 
 Plowman's Crcde to a writer of narrower views, who (circ. 1394) availed 
 himself of the reputation of the earlier poem to gain currency for his own. 
 The Crede is only 850 lines long, in the same meter and general style as 
 the Vision ; but is very bitter in invective against the friars, and its 
 Peter is a Peter of flesh and blood not an ideal character. Skeat re- 
 gards the author of the Crede as " almost certainly the author of The 
 Ploughman's Talc, which appears in some editions of Chaucer, but which 
 is certainly not his." 
 
 | Pp. xxvii.-xxxii.
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 107 
 
 has attained to a better knowledge of truth, and a purer 
 personal character, than could be achieved by vigils and 
 pilgrimages. 
 
 The poem is not deficient in genuine poetic feeling (the 
 first twenty lines in the A text are proof enough of that) ; 
 but it abounds in touches of quaint and quiet humor as 
 when the poet, satirizing the legal profession, says : 
 
 " Thou my test better mete [measure] the myste 
 On Malverne hulles, 
 
 Than get a momme of here [their] mouthe 
 But [unless] money were shewed ; 
 
 or when he makes the palmer, who had visited all the 
 holy shrines, upon being asked if he could show the way 
 to truth, reply : 
 
 " I seygh nevere palmere, 
 With pike ne with scrippe 
 Axen after hym er 
 Til now in this place " ; 
 
 or when, again, describing the "pilgrymes and palmers," 
 he says : 
 
 " Thei went forth in here way 
 
 With many wise tales, 
 
 And hadden leve to ly& 
 
 Al here lyf after." 
 
 Dealing largely with the humbler classes of society, 
 the author of Piers Plowman gives us incidental sketches 
 of the every-day life of the fourteenth century which are 
 simply invaluable. "Long Will" was by no means so 
 true a poet as his great contemporary, Chaucer ; but he 
 was more earnest and hearty in his repudiation of abuses 
 which both of them saw and despised ; and he shared 
 with Chaucer that subtle insight into men and things 
 which stamps them both as men of rare genius. Like 
 Chaucer (perhaps even more than Chaucer), the author of 
 Piers Plowman was far in advance of his age in his politi- 
 cal and religious opinions. Thus in the lines
 
 108 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 " Thannc come there a kyng, 
 Knythod hym ladde, 
 Migt of the comuiies 
 Made hym to regne," 
 
 lie conceives of tlie monarch as deriving his power from 
 the commonalty over whom he bears sway. And with 
 reference to the legitimate exercise even of kingly power, 
 he has very clear ideas which accord rather with the spirit 
 of the nineteenth century than that of the fourteenth. 
 
 His ideas of the rightful supremacy of the individual 
 conscience are equally striking. " Holi Churche " is thus 
 addressed : 
 
 " Yit have I no kuynde knowing [nat. intelligence] quod I, 
 Thou most teche me bettre 
 Bi what Craft in my Corps 
 Hit [truth] cumsetn [commences] and Avhere." 
 
 To which the church is made to reply : 
 
 " ' Thou dotest daffe', quath lico, 
 ' Dulle are thi wittes ; 
 Hit is a kuynde knowing 
 That kenneth thee, in herte, 
 For to love thi Louerd 
 Lcvere than thi selven, 
 No dedly sunne to do, 
 Bye thaug thou scholdest ; 
 This I trouwe beo [to be] treuthe 
 Hose [who-so] con teche the bettre'."* 
 
 * In the same spirit, the author makes Peter the Plowman say to 
 those who, awakened by the preaching of conscience, are in quest of 
 truth : 
 
 "I knowe him [truth] as kuyndeliche [naturally] 
 
 As clerk doth his bokes. 
 
 Clene conscience and wit 
 
 Taughte me to his place, 
 
 And dude enseurc me seththe [afterward] 
 
 To serve him for ever, 
 
 Bothe to sowen and to setten 
 
 While I swynke [toil] mihte." 
 
 That is to say, truth is to be found not merely within the pale of the
 
 AND ITS EARLY LITERATURE. 109 
 
 The enlightened liberality of the author is strikingly 
 exemplified by the following passage with reference to the 
 Jews, who were in his day equally hated and despised : 
 
 " Sholde no cristen creature 
 Cryen at the yate, 
 Ne faille payn [bread] no potage, 
 And prelates dide as tnci Beholden. 
 A Jew wolde noght so a Jew 
 Go janglying for defautc 
 For alle the mebles [mcuUei\ on this moolde, 
 And he amende it myglite. 
 Alias ! that a cristene creature 
 Shal be unkynde til another ; 
 Syn Jews, that we jugge 
 Judas felawes, 
 
 Eyther of hem helpcth oother 
 Of that that hem nedeth, 
 Whi nel [ne will] we cristene 
 Of Cristes good be as kynde 
 As Jews, that ben oure lores-men ? " 
 
 It is by the expression of such sentiments that the au- 
 thor of Piers Plowman wins from Dean Milman* and 
 Mr. Marsh f the praise of being a veritable reformer one 
 who, even before the time of Wiclif, emphasized those 
 truths which, through Wiclif and Tyndale, Ridley and 
 Latimer, were soon to gain so strong a hold 011 the Eng- 
 lish people. I 
 
 church, but by following the dictates of conscience ; and is to be served 
 while going about one's ordinary business. 
 
 * See Clarendon Press Piers Plowman, p. xix. sq. 
 
 f Origin and History of the Eng. Lang., p. 296. 
 
 \ The striking passage at the close of the Vision concerning Peter 
 Plowman, in the B text, beginning 
 
 " Now hath the pope powere 
 Pardoun to graunt the peple," 
 
 will help to vindicate for our author the position assigned him.
 
 110 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 
 
 86. What writer of the period transcends in signifi- 
 cance all his contemporaries, and why ? 
 
 Contemporary with Mandeville and Wiclif, Lawrence 
 Minot, Gower, and Langlande, yet towering above them 
 all, by virtue of his keener poetic insight, his subtler 
 mastery of language, his broader sympathy with nature 
 and with man the only author whom we have named 
 that 
 
 " Was not of an age, but for all time," 
 
 is Geoffrey Chaucer. 
 
 But to Chaucer must be given more time than is con- 
 sistent with such an outline sketch as we have been 
 attempting. With him, therefore, let us begin our minu- 
 ter and more specific studies in English Literature.
 
 A TOPICAL ABSTRACT 
 
 OF 
 
 "THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND ITS 
 EARLY LITERATURE." 
 
 Topic. Theme. . Page 
 
 1. English language, its origin and history why studied 3 
 
 2. " language and literature, methods of study 5 
 
 3. Language, the three great families of 7 
 
 4. Semitic family and Allophylian family characterized 7 
 
 5. Languages, points of difference between 8 
 
 6. " resemblance between 9 
 
 7. Grimm's Law 10 
 
 8. Indo-European, Aryan terms expl. and peoples characterized.. 13 
 
 9. languages characterized 14 
 
 10. " " basis of their affinity 15 
 
 11. Britain, earliest known inhabitants of, Kelts 16 
 
 1 2. " when peopled 17 
 
 13. Implemental classification of man 18 
 
 14. British Kelts, classification of 19 
 
 15. Scots and Picts, origin of 20 
 
 16. British Kelts, differences between, accounted for 21 
 
 17. Kymric Kelts, general character of 22 
 
 18. Wales, early literature of 23 
 
 19. Ireland, " " 26 
 
 20. Keltic literature, its relation to English 27 
 
 21. Britain, invasion of, by Julius Caesar 27 
 
 22. " conquest of, by Rome 28 
 
 23. " condition of, during Roman occupation 29 
 
 24. Roman occupation, permanent influence of 30 
 
 25. Latin words, periods of introduction into English 31 
 
 26. Scots and Picts, incursions of 32 
 
 27. Saxon occupation of Britain, how and when begun 32 
 
 28. " invasions recorded by " the Chronicle " 33 
 
 29. " consolidation according to " the Chronicle " 34 
 
 30. Chronicle, Saxon, its nature and value 35 
 
 31. Teutonic languages, classification of 36 
 
 32. Chronicle, credibility of resp'g centers of immigration and date. 38 
 
 33. " Invasion," real nature of Saxon 38 
 
 34. " Jutes," their alleged settlement in Britain 39 
 
 35. Angles, their part in the settlement of Britain 41
 
 112 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 
 
 Topic. Tfiemc. Page 
 
 36. Angles not to be discriminated from Saxons 42 
 
 37. Frisians, their part in the settlement of Britain 42 
 
 38. Teutonic settlement of Britain, summary of facts concerning. . . 43 
 
 39. Kelts, popular misconception of their fate 45 
 
 40. " what probably became of them 46 
 
 41. Keltic language, degree of its influence on A. S 47 
 
 42. " nature of its contributions to Eng. vocabulary. . . 49 
 
 43. Anglo-Saxon language, its origin, its alphabet 50 
 
 44. " " vocabulary characterized 50 
 
 45. " " inflectional system 53 
 
 46. 
 47. 
 48. 
 49. 
 50. 
 
 syntax 55 
 
 literature, its character, value, and influence 56 
 
 poetry alliteration 57 
 
 " its metrical system 58 
 
 authors Caedmon.. 58 
 
 51. " Beowulf 59 
 
 52. " ' " Alfred 60 
 
 53. " < " Aelfric 61 
 
 54. Latin authors of Anglo-Saxon period 62 
 
 55. " " a later period 62 
 
 56. Anglo-Saxon society, grades in 64 
 
 57. " " state, constitution of 70 
 
 58. Christianization of Britain 73 
 
 59. Anglo-Saxon people, characteristics of 76 
 
 60. Danish invasion, its origin, nature, and results 77 
 
 61. " conquest, its influence on A. S. race and language 78 
 
 62. Norman-French race and language, origin of 79 
 
 63. 
 64. 
 65. 
 66. 
 67. 
 
 ^uage, characteristics of 81 
 
 conquest, ethnologic influence of 82 
 
 circumstances that led to 83 
 
 " how and when accomplished 84 
 
 its immediate results 85 
 
 68. Three languages in Britain after the conquest 86 
 
 69. Dialects of A. S., middle English, modern English 86 
 
 70. Norman-French, its influence on structure of English 89 
 
 71. " " " " " vocabulary of " 90 
 
 72. " " contrib. to English vocabulary, nature and value 91 
 
 73. Semi-Saxon period, literature of 93 
 
 74. Layamon, Onnulum, Ancren Riwle, Surtees Psalter 94 
 
 75. Early English period, beginning of 96 
 
 76. " " poems of 97 
 
 77. " " " chronicles of 99 
 
 78. Literary history of England, classification of, 1350 to 1878 100 
 
 79. Formative period in English literature characterized 102 
 
 80. Sir John Mandeville 102 
 
 81. John Wiclif 103 
 
 82. Lawrence Minot and John Gower 104 
 
 83. Piers Plowman, its author 104 
 
 84. " " the three texts of 105 
 
 85. " " its nature and value 106 
 
 86. Geoffrey Chaucer 110
 
 PERIODS IN THE HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 
 
 [The following syllabus is intended as a basis for the student's more 
 extended studies in English literature to be amplified by written and 
 oral dissertations ; class-room lectures and discussions ; and illustrative 
 readings. Of course, in such a compend, only those names of which one 
 should feel ashamed to be ignorant, can be included. The names that 
 best typify a period (which are not always the names of its best authors) 
 are printed in bold-faced type. Fictitious names are printed in italics.] 
 
 A. THE LANGUAGE. 
 
 I. THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD. 650-10GG. From the 
 
 consolidation of the Saxon dialects to the Norman 
 Conquest. Noteworthy authors, or books, are : 
 
 Coedmon. 
 Beowulf. 
 
 The Saxon Chronicle. 
 
 Alfred. 
 
 ^Elfric. 
 
 II. THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM ANGLO-SAXON TO 
 
 ENGLISH. 10G6-1350. 
 
 1. TJie Semi-Saxon Period. 10GG-1250. 
 
 Layamon " The Brat." 
 The Ormulum. 
 The Ancren Riwle. 
 The Surtees Psalter. 
 G
 
 114 SYLLABUS OF 
 
 2. The Early English Period. 1250-1350. 
 
 f The Owl and Nightingale. 
 
 (1) Metrical J The Eomance of Alisaundre. 
 Romances, j A Littell Geste of Kyng Home, 
 
 ^ The Lay of Havelok. 
 
 (2) Rhymed j Robert of Gloucester. 
 Chronicles. ( Robert Manning of Brunne. 
 
 Contemporary with the authors already mentioned, 
 but writing in the Latin tongue, are : 
 
 The Venerable Bede, d. 735, " Ecclesiastical History 
 of Britain." 
 
 Alcuin, d. 804, eminent for scholarship. 
 
 Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, d, 1109, " Cur 
 Deus Homo." 
 
 John of Salisbury, d. 1180, eminent as a teacher. 
 
 Walter Map, d. circ. 1210, the first English litterateur. 
 
 Roger Bacon, d. 1292, the first English devotee of 
 physical science. 
 
 Duns Scotus, d. 1308, eminent in philosophy. 
 
 The list might be considerably extended ; and, after 
 the Norman conquest, authors who wrote in Norman- 
 French might be added. 
 
 Good authorities on the language and literature of 
 these early periods are : Freeman's Old English History ; 
 Marsh's Origin and History of the English Language ; 
 Hughes's Alfred the Great ; Morley's Writers before 
 Chaucer ; Oliphant's Old and Middle English ; Morris's 
 Specimens of Early English. 
 
 B. THE LITERATURE. 
 
 1. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD. 1350-1474. From the 
 time when Chaucer and his contemporaries made 
 the East Midland dialect the literary language of 
 England, to the time when William Caxton es- 
 tablished the first printing-press. Literature
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 115 
 
 neither Anglo-Saxon nor Norman-French, but 
 English : and indissolubly connected with the 
 literature of modern times. Leading authors or 
 works : 
 
 (1) Prose: 
 
 Sir John Mandcville Travels. 
 
 d. 1372. 
 Wiclif Translation of New Testament. 
 
 d. 1382. 
 
 (2) Poetry: 
 
 Piers Plowman. 
 . Lawrence Mi not. 
 Gower "Confessio Amantis." 
 
 d. 1408. 
 Chaucer "Canterbury Tales." 
 
 d. 1400. 
 The Ballads. 
 
 Consult Marsh and Morris ut supra; Green's Short 
 History of the English People ; Morley's English Writers 
 from Chaucer to Duribar ; Warton's History of English 
 Poetry ; the Clarendon Press editions of Chaucer and 
 Piers Plowman; Browne's Chaucer' s England; West- 
 cott's History of the English Bible ; Lowell's My Study 
 Windows and Alexander Smith's Dreamthorpe (on Chau- 
 cer) ; Ritson's Robin Hood. 
 
 II. THE PERIOD OF THE RENAISSANCE (Taine) ; or 
 THE PERIOD OF ITALIAN INFLUENCE (Morley). 
 1474-16GO. From the introduction of printing 
 to the development of French influence attendant 
 on the restoration of the Stuarts. 
 
 This period may be subdivided as follows : 
 I. 1474-1558 (from the introduction of printing to the 
 accession of Elizabeth) covering the anticipatory
 
 116 SYLLABUS OF 
 
 movements of a new literary life. Leading au- 
 thors : 
 
 (1) Prose: 
 
 Wm. Caxton the first English printer. 
 
 d. 1492. 
 Sir Thos. Malory " Byrth, Lif and Acts of Kyng 
 
 Arthur." pub. 1485. 
 Wm. Tyndale Translation of the Bible. 
 
 d. 1536. 
 Hugh Latimer Sermons. 
 
 b. 1472, d. 1555. 
 Sir Thos. More "Utopia." 
 
 b. 1480, d. 1535. 
 Abp. Cranmer Kevision of the Bible. 
 
 b. 1489, d. 1556. 
 Eoger Ascham "The Scholernastcr." 
 
 b. 1515, d. 1568. 
 
 (2) Poetry: 
 
 John Skelton Political Satires. 
 
 b. 1460, d. 1529. 
 Sternhold and Hopkins Version of the Psalms. 
 
 pub. 1549. 
 Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey Sonnets, blank 
 
 verse, translation of ^Eneid. 
 d. 1547. 
 John Hey wood Interludes (" The Four P's"). 
 
 d. 1565. 
 Nicholas Udall First English comedy ("Ralph 
 
 Roister Doister "). 
 b. 1506, d. 1564. 
 
 Consult Reed's English Literature, fifth lecture ; Col- 
 lier's English Literature, p. 71 sq. ; Humphrey's History 
 of Printing ; Westcott and Warton lit supra; Arber's re- 
 prints of Latimer., Ascham, and Udall ; Miss Manning's 
 Household of Sir Thomas More ; Keltic's British Dram- 
 atists ; Adams's Famous Books.
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 117 
 
 2. 1558-1625. From the accession of Elizabeth to the 
 death of James I. being the great creative period in 
 English Literature ; or, The Elizabethan Aye. Lead- 
 ing characteristics of the period are : 
 
 (1) The permanent revival of the English poetic spirit. 
 
 Spenser "The Faery Qucene." 
 
 b. 1553, d. 1590. 
 Herbert Sacred poems. 
 
 b. 1590, d. 1632. 
 
 (2) The most magnificent development of dramatic 
 literature that the world has ever known. 
 
 Thomas Sackville (Lord Buckhurst) "Corboduc, or 
 Ferrex and Porrex." 
 
 b. 1536, d. 1608. 
 Christopher Marlowe "Dr. Fausttis." 
 
 d. 1593. 
 
 Shakspere " Merchant of Venice," " As you like 
 it," "Lear," "Hamlet." 
 
 b. 1564, d. 1616. 
 Ben Jonson " The Alchemist." 
 
 b. 1573, d. 1637. 
 Beaumont and Fletcher " Philaster." 
 
 d. 1616. b. 1576, d. 1625. 
 Webster" The Duchess of Malfi." 
 
 pub. 1623. 
 Ford "The Lady's Trial." 
 
 b. 1586. 
 Massinger "A New "Way to Pay Old Debts." 
 
 b. 1584, d. 1640. 
 
 (3) A development, hardly less striking, of elevated, 
 dignified, and philosophic prose. 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney The Arcadia. 
 
 b. 1554, d. 1586. 
 Hooker " Ecclesiastical Polity." 
 
 d. 1600. 
 Sir Walter Raleigh History of the World. 
 
 b. 1552, d. 1618.
 
 118 SYLLABUS OF 
 
 Francis Bacon Essays, " Advancement of Learn- 
 
 ing." 
 
 b. 1560, d. 1626. 
 John Selden Table Talk. 
 
 b. 1584, d. 1654. 
 
 The English Bible authorized version, 
 pub. 1611. 
 
 On this period (as well as on those which follow) 
 Brooke's Literature Primer, Fiske's abridgement of 
 Taine's English Literature, Morley's First Sketch of 
 English Literature, and Allibone's Dictionary of Au- 
 thors, will be especially useful. Consult, also, on this 
 period : White's Life and Genius of Shakspere ; Dow- 
 den's Shakspere, His Mind and Art, or Shakspere Prim- 
 er ; Whipple's Literature of the Age of Elizabeth ; 
 Lowell's Among my Books, vol. ii. (on Spenser) ; Haz- 
 litt's Dramatic Literature of the Age of Elizabeth ; the 
 Clarendon Press editions of Spenser, Shakspere, Bacon, 
 Marlowe, and Hooker j Spenser in the " English Men 
 of Letters" series. 
 
 3. 1625-1660. From the death of James I. to the 
 restoration of the Stuarts covering the period of 
 Puritan influence. Forsaking the somewhat super- 
 ficial discrimination into poetry and prose, we 
 recognize : 
 
 (1) Puritan Literature. 
 
 Milton "Paradise Lost," "Comus," "Areopa- 
 gitica." 
 
 b. 1608, d. 1674. 
 Baxter "Saint's Everlasting Rest." 
 
 b. 1615, d. 1691. 
 Bunyan " Pilgrim's Progress." 
 
 b. 1628, d. 1688. 
 
 (2) Cavalier Literature. 
 
 Thomas Hobbes " The Leviathan." 
 b. 1588, d. 1679.
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 119 
 
 Robert Herrick Poems. 
 
 b. 1591, d. 1674. 
 Izaak Walton "The Complete Angler." 
 
 b. 1593, d. 1683. 
 Thomas Fuller " Holy and Profane States." 
 
 b. 1608, d. 1661. 
 Jeremy Taylor Sermons. 
 
 b. 1613, d. 1667. 
 Sir Thomas Browne "Rcligio Medici." 
 
 b. 1605, d. 1682. 
 Clarendon History of the Rebellion. 
 
 b. 1608, d. 1674. 
 Ballads. 
 
 Consult, especially, on the period : Masson's Life of 
 Milton. See also : Macaulay's essays on Milton and Bun- 
 van ; Addison's, Southey's, Everett's, Channing's, See- 
 ley's, Lowell's, and Matthew Arnold's essays, and Alli- 
 bone's article, on Milton ; William R. Williams's essay on 
 Baxter ; Mackay's Cavalier Songs and Ballads of Eng- 
 land ; Wilkinss Political Ballads; Adams's Famous 
 Books. 
 
 III. THE CLASSIC AGE (Taine) ; or THE PERIOD OF 
 FRENCH INFLUENCE (Morley). 1660-1789. From 
 the restoration of the Stuarts to the French Revolu- 
 tion. The period has, from the number and the 
 superficial brilliancy of its authors, acquired the 
 name of "The Augustan Age of English Litera- 
 ture," a name to which, as ordinarily interpreted, 
 the age of Queen Anne is by no means entitled. 
 In many of its characteristics, it resembled the 
 Augustan age of Rome ; but it was by no means 
 the brightest period of English literary history. 
 The prominent characteristics of the period are 
 laxity of morals and shallowness of thought par- 
 tially redeemed by exquisite, yet excessive, refine- 
 ment of expression. Its models and its standards 
 of criticism were French, rather than English ; but
 
 120 SYLLABUS OF 
 
 it rendered an important service to English litera- 
 ture in paving the way for the clear, simple, direct 
 English style of the present day. Its leading au- 
 thors are : 
 
 (1) Poetry. 
 
 Butler "Hudibras." 
 
 b. 1612, d. 1680. 
 Dryden "M'Flecknoe," "Alexander's Feast." 
 
 b. 1631, d. 1700. 
 Wycherly and Congreve Dramatists. 
 
 b. 1640, d. 1715. b. 1666, d. 1729. 
 Gay "Fables." 
 
 b. 1688, d. 1732. 
 Pope " Eape of the Lock," " Essay on Man." 
 
 b. 1688, d. 1744. 
 Thomson "The Seasons." 
 
 b. 1700, d. 1748. 
 Gray " Elegy," "The Bard." 
 
 b. 1716, d. 1771. 
 Collins "Ode on the Passions." 
 
 b. 1720, d. 1756. 
 Goldsmith "Traveller," "Deserted Village." 
 
 b. 1728, d. 1774. 
 
 (2) Prose. 
 
 Locke "Essay on the Human Understanding." 
 
 b. 1632, d. 1704. 
 South Sermons. 
 
 b. 1633, d. 1716. 
 Burnet Exposition of the 39 Articles. 
 
 b. 1643, d. 1715. 
 Newton "The Principia." 
 
 b. 1642, d. 1727. 
 Jeremy Collier " Short View of English Stage." 
 
 b. 1650, d. 1726. 
 Addison "The Spectator." 
 
 b. 1672, d. 1719. 
 Steele " The Spectator." 
 
 b. 1671, d. 1729.
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 121 
 
 DC Foe " Robinson Crusoe." 
 
 b. 1661, d. 1731. 
 Swift" Gulliver's Travels," " Tale of a Tub." 
 
 b. 1667, d. 1745. 
 Richardson " Clarissa Harlowe." 
 
 b. 1689, d. 1761. 
 Fielding " Tom Jones." 
 
 b. 1707, d. 1754. 
 William Pitt (Earl of Chatham) Orator. 
 
 b. 1708, d. 1778. 
 
 Johnson Dictionary, "Lives of the Poets," 
 " Rasselas." 
 
 b. 1709, d. 1784. 
 Reid " Inquiry into the Human Mind." 
 
 b. 1710, d. 1796. 
 Hume History of England. 
 
 b. 1711, d. 1776. 
 Sterne" Tristram Shandy." 
 
 b. 1713, d. 1768. 
 Smollett "Roderick Random." 
 
 b. 1721, d. 1771. 
 Adam Smith" Wealth of Nations." 
 
 b. 1723, d. 1790. 
 Goldsmith" Vicar of Wakefield." 
 
 b. 1728, d. 1774. 
 Burke " Reflections on the Revolution in France." 
 
 b. 1728, d. 1797. 
 Gibbon " Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." 
 
 b. 1737, d. 1794. 
 Fox Orator. 
 
 b. 1749, d. 1806. 
 Junius Political Satires in form of Letters. 
 
 1769-1772. 
 Fanny Burney (Madame D'Arblay) " Evelina." 
 
 b. 1752, d. 1840. 
 
 While, to the very close of this period, the influence 
 of French classicism was dominant, English sense (repre- 
 sented by such men as De Foe) was struggling hard to 
 find expression. We may note as redeeming features in 
 a hollow and pretentious age : 
 6
 
 122 SYLLABUS OF 
 
 a. The development of the English novel, by De Foe, 
 Swift, Sterne, Kichardson, Fielding, Smollett, and Gold- 
 smith. 
 
 b. The rise of English periodical literature. 
 
 c. The rise of modern schools of science mental and 
 physical represented by Locke, Newton, Keid, Hume, 
 and Adam Smith. 
 
 d. The occurrence of the first two names in the long 
 list of eminent English historians Hume and Gibbon. 
 
 e. The rise of Methodism or a general revival of re- 
 ligion and morality in England, through the influence 
 of such men as John and Charles Wesley, and George 
 Whitefield. 
 
 Consult on the period : Thackeray's English Humor- 
 ists, Four Georges, and Henry Esmond ; Lowell's Among 
 my Books, vol. i. (on Dryden) and My Study Windoius 
 (on Pope) ; Stephen's Hours in a Library (on Pope, De 
 Foe, and Eichardson) ; Macaulay on Dryden, Johnson, 
 Addison, and Madame D'Arblay ; Boswell's Life of John- 
 son; Forster's Life of Goldsmith and Biographical Es- 
 says ; Masson's British Novelists ; Scott's Lives of the 
 Novelists ; Hazlitt's English Comic Writers ; Brewster's 
 Life of Newton ; the Clarendon Press editions of Burlev 
 and. Dry den; Hales's Longer English Poems; Johnson, 
 De Foe, Burke, and Hume, in the "English Men of 
 Letters " series. 
 
 IV. THE PERIOD OF MODERN LIFE (Taine) ; THE PE- 
 RIOD OF ENGLISH POPULAR INFLUENCE (Mor- 
 ley). 1789-1878. 
 
 During this period, the mind emancipated, by the 
 French revolution, from the fetters of a false classicism 
 has developed itself, in obedience to its natural tendencies, 
 in many and widely different directions. German influ- 
 ence has been extensively felt ; but rather as reinforcing 
 the German side of the English nature than as creating a 
 distinctively German period in English literature. The
 
 EKGLISII LITERATURE. 123 
 
 age has boon characterized by marked literary activity ; 
 but is, on the whole, critical rather than creative. The 
 most striking features of the period are : 
 
 a. The rise of the Romantic school of English poe- 
 try which we classify as the poetry of thought, the 
 poetry of feeling, and the poetry of action ; rather than as 
 "subjective" and "objective" poetry. 
 
 b. The excessive development of periodical literature, 
 c. The development of new schools of fiction e. g., 
 
 the historical romance, the novel with a purpose, and the 
 psychological novel in addition to the story of adven- 
 ture (the modern juvenile) and the society novel, which 
 had been previously developed. 
 
 d. The development of new schools of mental and 
 physical science. 
 
 e. The degree of attention paid to historical studies. 
 
 f. The literary prominence attained by woman. 
 
 The prominent authors of the period, with the depart- 
 ments in which they have attained distinction, are indi- 
 cated below. The author has, however, found the task 
 of selection by no means an easy one ; and hopes that 
 omissions and errors of judgment will not be too severely 
 condemned. 
 
 POETRY. 
 
 (1) of Thought. 
 
 (2) of Feeling. 
 
 (3) of Action. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Burns. 
 
 Scott. 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 Cowper. 
 
 Southey. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 Byron. 
 
 Campbell. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Keats. 
 
 Macaulay. 
 
 Browning. 
 
 Moore. 
 
 Wm. Morris. 
 
 Mrs. Browning. 
 
 Keble. 
 
 
 
 Owen Meredith. 
 
 
 
 Jean Ingelow. 
 
 
 
 Swinburne. 

 
 124 
 
 SYLLABUS OF 
 
 FICTION. 
 
 Author. 
 
 Society Novel. 
 
 Historical 
 Romance. 
 
 Novd with a 
 Purpose. 
 
 Psycho- 
 logical 
 Fiction. 
 
 Scott. 
 
 
 " Ivanhoe." 
 
 
 
 1771 1S82. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Jane Austen. 
 
 " Pride and 
 
 
 
 
 17751817. 
 
 Prejudice." 
 
 
 
 
 Bulwer. 
 
 "The 
 
 " Eienzi." 
 
 
 
 18051873. 
 
 Caxtons." 
 
 
 
 
 Disraeli. 
 
 "Vivian 
 
 
 
 
 1S05 
 
 Grav." 
 
 
 
 
 Thackeray. 
 
 "The New- 
 
 "Henry Es- 
 
 
 
 1811 1S63. 
 
 comes." 
 
 mond." 
 
 
 
 Dickens. 
 
 " David Cop- 
 
 "Tale of two 
 
 "Martin 
 
 
 1812 1870. 
 
 perfield." 
 
 Cities." 
 
 Chuzzlewit." 
 
 
 Charles Reade. 
 
 
 
 ; Put yourself in 
 
 "Griffith 
 
 1814 
 
 
 
 his Place." 
 
 Gaunt." 
 
 Anthony Trollope. 
 
 " Framley 
 
 
 
 
 1815 
 
 Parsonage." 
 
 
 
 
 Charlotte Bronte. 
 
 " Jane Eyre." 
 
 
 
 " Jane 
 
 18161855. 
 
 
 
 
 Eyre." 
 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
 
 "Westward 
 
 ' ; Alton 
 
 " Hypa- 
 
 18191875. 
 
 
 Ho!" 
 
 Locke." 
 
 tia." 
 
 George Eliot. 
 
 "Adam Bede." 
 
 " Romola." 
 
 "Daniel De- 
 
 "Middle- 
 
 1820? 
 
 
 
 ronda." 
 
 march." 
 
 Wilkie Collins. 
 
 " Basil." 
 
 " Antonina." 
 
 " Man and 
 
 
 1821 
 
 
 
 Wife." 
 
 
 Thomas Hughes. 
 
 "Tnm Brown 
 
 
 
 
 1828 
 
 at Rugby." 
 
 
 
 
 George MacDonald. 
 1825 
 
 "David 
 Elprinbrod." 
 
 " St. Georpe & 
 St. Michael." 
 
 
 
 Miss Muloch. 
 
 " John Halifax." 
 
 
 " Hannah." 
 
 
 1826 
 
 
 
 
 
 William Black. 
 
 " A Princess of 
 
 
 
 
 1S41 
 
 Thule." 
 
 
 
 
 B. L. Farjeon. 
 
 " Blade o' 
 
 
 
 
 
 Grass." 
 
 
 
 
 ESSAYS AND CRITICISM. 
 
 Lord Jeffrey. 
 
 Sydney Smith. 
 
 Christopher North. 
 
 John Foster. 
 
 Sir James Mackintosh. 
 
 Carlyle. 
 
 Do Quincey. 
 
 Macaulay. 
 
 Walter Savage Landor. 
 
 HUMOR. 
 
 Charles Lamb. 
 Thomas Hood. 
 Douglas Jerrold. 
 Mark Lemon (London 
 Punch}.
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 
 
 125 
 
 ESSAYS AND CRITICISM. 
 
 A. W. and J. C. Hare. 
 
 Harriet Martineau. 
 
 John Kuskin. 
 
 Philip Gilbert Ilumcrton. 
 
 Matthew Arnold. 
 
 Sir Arthur Helps. 
 
 Mrs. Jameson. 
 
 Prof. Seeley. 
 
 John Morley. 
 
 Henry Morley. 
 
 Leslie Stephen. 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 Milman. 
 
 Arnold. 
 
 Lingard. 
 
 Hallam. 
 
 Macaulay. 
 
 Grote. 
 
 Buckle. 
 
 Froude. 
 
 Dean Stanley. 
 
 Freeman. 
 
 Mill. 
 
 Prof. Stubbs. 
 
 Green. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Sou they (Nelson). 
 
 Moore (Byron). 
 
 Lockhart (Scott). 
 
 Carlyle (Cromwell). 
 
 Agnes Strickland (Queens of England). 
 
 Lady Holland (Sydney Smith). 
 
 Mrs. Oliphant (Edward Irving). 
 
 Stanley (Arnold). 
 
 Smiles (Stephenson). 
 
 David Masson (Milton). 
 
 Theo. Martin (The Prince Consort). 
 
 ORATORY. 
 
 (1) Secular. 
 
 Grattan. 
 
 Curran. 
 
 Erskine. 
 
 Brougham. 
 
 Macaulay. 
 
 Cobden. 
 
 John Bright. 
 
 Gladstone. 
 
 Disraeli. 
 
 (2) Sacred. 
 
 Thomas Chalmers. 
 Pxobert Hall. 
 Edward Irving. 
 Thomas Guthrie. 
 F. W. Robertson. 
 Charles H. Spurgeon. 
 Alexander Maclaren.
 
 126 SYLLABUS OF 
 
 THEOLOGY. BIBLICAL LITERATURE. 
 
 Dr. Pusey. 
 
 John Henry Newman. 
 
 F. W. Newman. 
 
 Henry Eogers. 
 
 Dean Mansel. 
 
 F. D. Maurice. 
 
 J. B. Mozley. 
 
 Tregelles. 
 
 Dean Alford. 
 
 Angus. 
 
 Abp. Trench. 
 
 Conybeare and Howson. 
 
 Bp. Ellicott. 
 
 Perowne. 
 
 F. W. Farrar. 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 (1) Mental 
 
 Dugald Stewart. 
 Coleridge. 
 Abp. Whately. 
 Sir Wm. Hamilton. 
 James Mill. 
 Alex. Bain. 
 Herbert Spencer. 
 G. H. Lewes. 
 John Sterling. 
 James Ferrier. 
 W. Stanley Jevons. 
 W. E. H. Lecky. 
 
 (2) Physical. 
 
 Sir David Brewster. 
 Dr. Wm. Whewell. 
 Sir John Herschel. 
 Sir Humphry Davy. 
 Sir Chas. Lyell. 
 Hugh Miller. 
 Mrs. Somerville. 
 Michael Faraday. 
 Huxley. 
 Darwin. 
 Tyndall. 
 Sir Wm. Thomson. 
 
 (3) Political 
 
 Bentham. 
 
 J. Stuart Mill. 
 
 Austin. 
 
 Cairnes. 
 
 Maine. 
 
 Bagehot. 
 
 Fawcett. 
 
 (4) Ethnologic and Linguistic. 
 
 Wilkinson. 
 
 Latham. 
 
 Garnett. 
 
 Prichard. 
 
 Max Miiller. 
 
 Sir John Lubbock. 
 
 Edw. B. Tylor. 
 
 TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE. 
 
 Darwin. Livingstone. 
 
 Layard^. Sir Samuel Baker. 
 
 Rawlin'son. Burton.
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE. 127 
 
 The following works contain suggestive discussions of 
 some of the leading authors of the period : 
 
 Stedman's Victorian Poets. 
 
 Devey's Comparative Estimate of Modern British Poets. 
 
 Shairp's Studies in Poetry and Philosophy (on Words- 
 worth and Coleridge). 
 
 Masson's Recent British Philosophy. 
 " Recent British Novelists. 
 " Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Other Essays. 
 
 Lowell's My Study Windows (on Carlyle). 
 
 " Among My Books, vol. ii. (on Wordsworth and 
 Keats). 
 
 Stirling's Jerrold, Tennyson, Macaulay, and Other Es- 
 says. 
 
 Kingsley's Miscellanies (on Burns and Tennyson). 
 
 Fields's Yesterdays with Authors (on Thackeray and 
 Dickens). 
 
 Wilkinson's Free Lance (on George Eliot). 
 
 Whipple's Essays and Reviews (on Macaulay, Sydney 
 Smith, and the English poets of the century). 
 
 Minto's English Prose Literature (on De Quincey, Mac- 
 aulay, and Carlyle). 
 
 Stephen's Hours in a Library (on Scott and De Quincey). 
 
 Brimley's Essays (on Tennyson, Wordsworth, etc.). 
 
 Brooke's Theology in the English Poets. 
 
 Hazlitt's Lectures on the English Poets. 
 
 Nettleship's Essays on Browning. 
 
 Page's Life of De Quincey. 
 
 Matthews's Hours with Men and Books (on De Quincey). 
 
 Justin McCarthy's Modern Leaders (on Gladstone, Bright, 
 Mill, George Eliot, Bulwer, Ruskiu, Reade, Kings- 
 ley, Froude). 
 
 The English Men of Letters scries (on Burns and Shelley). 
 
 Peter Bayne's Lessons from my Masters (on Carlyle, Ten- 
 nyson, and Ruskin) .
 
 AMEKICAN LITEEATUKE. 
 
 Three periods may be recognized : 
 
 I. THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 
 
 Extending from 1620 to 17G5 : or from the landing of 
 the pilgrims to the passage of the stamp act. Literature 
 scanty, as was natural in a new country where the energy 
 of the settlers was absorbed in a struggle for existence. 
 Formed, as was natural, after English models ; and, for 
 the most part, stunted and stiffened by Puritanism. The 
 only names worth mentioning are : 
 
 John Winthrop "Journal of the Mass. Colony." 
 
 b. 1588, d. 1G49. 
 Roger Williams "Bloudy Tenent of Persecution." 
 
 b. 1606, d. 1683. 
 John Eliot The Indian Bible. 
 
 b. 1604, d. 1690. 
 Anne Bradstreet Poems. 
 
 b. 1612, d. 1672. 
 Increase Mather " Remarkable Providences." 
 
 b. 1639, d. 1723. 
 Cotton Mather " Magnalia Christi Americana." 
 
 b. 1663, d. 1728. 
 Jonathan Edwards Treatise on the Will. 
 
 b. 1703, d. 1758. 
 John Woolman Journal. 
 
 b. 1720, d. 1772.
 
 130 SYLLABUS OF 
 
 II. THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD. 
 
 Extending from 1765 to 1815, or from the passage of 
 the stamp act to the close of the second war with Eng- 
 land. Pretty much all the literature of the period that 
 is real and heartfelt is political in its nature. Noteworthy 
 names are : 
 
 Benjamin Franklin " Autobiography." 
 
 b. 1706, d. 1790. 
 Thomas Paine "Common Sense." 
 
 b. 1737, d. 1809. 
 Thomas Jefferson "Declaration of Independence." 
 
 b. 1743, d. 1826. 
 Alexander Hamilton "The Federalist." 
 
 b. 1757, d. 1804. 
 Francis Hopkinson "The Battle of the Kegs." 
 
 b. 1737, d. 1791. 
 John Trumbull "M'Fingal." 
 
 b. 1750, d. 1831. 
 Joel Barlow "The Columbiad." 
 
 b. 1755, d. 1812. 
 Philip Freneau Poems. 
 
 b. 1752, d. 1832. 
 Benj. Thompson (Count Rumford) Scientist. 
 
 b. 1753, d. 1814. 
 Timothy D wight Theology. 
 
 b. 1752, d. 1817. 
 Fisher Ames "A Razeed Burke." 
 
 b. 1758, d. 1808. 
 Chas. Brockden Browne "Arthur Mervyn." 
 
 b. 1771, d. 1810. 
 Alexander Wilson Ornithologist. 
 
 b. 1776, d. 1813. 
 Wm. Wirt "The British Spy." 
 
 b. 1762, d. 1834.
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 131 
 
 III. THE NATIONAL PERIOD. 
 
 Extending from 1815 to 1878. The fresh literary lifo 
 felt in England at the beginning of the century was felt 
 also in America ; and the last sixty years have been years 
 of marked literary activity. Our literature has not seemed 
 to our English cousins to be as distinctively American, 
 cither in matter or manner, as it should be. They forget 
 that we are of the same race with themselves ; that their 
 early literature is our early literature ; and that thus we 
 are measurably precluded from developing that original 
 literature which they demand of us. Our literature cer- 
 tainly has not been characterized by servile imitation of 
 contemporary English authors ; and it certainly compares 
 favorably in diversity, strength, and brilliancy with the 
 English literature of the same period. If, in some re- 
 spects, the English excel us, in other respects we as far 
 excel them. We insert only the names of those authors 
 who may fairly be said to have achieved a European repu- 
 tation. 
 
 POETRY. FICTION. 
 
 Bryant. Cooper. 
 
 Richard II. Dana. Poe. 
 
 Drake. Hawthorne. 
 
 Ilalleck. Mrs. Stowe. 
 
 Poe. Sylvester Judd. 
 
 Longfellow. Herman Melville. 
 
 Sprague. W. Gilmore Simms. 
 
 Whittier. Theodore Winthrop. 
 
 Emerson. Edward Eggleston. 
 
 Lowell. W. M. Baker. 
 
 Holmes. W. D. Howells. 
 
 Bayard Taylor. Saxe Holme. 
 
 R, H. Stoddard. Frank Lee Benedict. 
 
 Walt. Whitman. Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. 
 
 E. C. Stedman. Louisa M. Alcott. 
 
 T. B. Aldrich. Frances Hodgson Burnett. 
 
 Henry James, Jr.
 
 132 
 
 SYLLABUS OF 
 
 IIlSTOEY. 
 
 Prescott. 
 
 Bancroft. 
 
 Hildreth. 
 
 Ticknor. 
 
 Motley. 
 
 Parkman. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Irving (Columbus). 
 
 Sparks (Washington). 
 
 G. W. Greene (Nathaniel 
 
 Greene). 
 Geo. T. Curtis (Webster). 
 
 ESSAYS AND CRITICISM. 
 
 Irving. 
 
 N. P. Willis. 
 
 H. D. Thoreau. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 Holmes. 
 
 E. P. Whipple. 
 
 Geo. Wm. Curtis. 
 
 Ik Marvel. 
 
 Gail Hamilton. 
 
 Richard Grant White. 
 
 E. E. Hale. 
 
 T. W. Higginson. 
 
 Charles Dudley Warner. 
 
 Horace Howard Furness. 
 
 HUMOR. 
 
 Jack Downing. 
 Widow Bedott. 
 Art emus Ward. 
 Mark Twain. 
 Josh Hillings. 
 Hans Breitmann. 
 Petroleum V. Nasty. 
 F. Bret Harte. 
 
 ORATORY. 
 
 (1) Secular. 
 
 John C. Calhoun. 
 Henry Clay. 
 Daniel Webster. 
 J. Q. Adams. 
 Edward Everett. 
 Eufus Choate. 
 Wm. II. Seward. 
 Chas. Sumner. 
 Wendell Phillips. 
 Geo. Wm. Curtis. 
 
 (2) Sacred. 
 
 Lyman Beecher. 
 Charles G. Finney. 
 Theodore Parker. 
 James W. Alexander. 
 Henry Ward Beecher.
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 133 
 
 THEOLOGY. BIBLICAL LITERATURE. 
 
 Archibald Alexander. 
 Nuth'l Taylor. 
 AVm. E. Charming. 
 Charles Hodge. 
 Horace Bushnell. 
 Henry B. Smith. 
 Edwards A. Park. 
 Frederick II. Hedge. 
 W. T. G. Shedd. 
 
 (1) Mental. 
 
 Francis Wayland. 
 Noah Porter. 
 Laurence P. Hickok. 
 Prof. Bowen. 
 Pres. M'Cosh. 
 
 Moses Stuart. 
 
 Edward Robinson. 
 
 George Bush. 
 
 Gco. R. Noyes. 
 
 Joseph Addison Alexander. 
 
 Horatio B. Hackett. 
 
 Thomas J. Coriant. 
 
 SCIENCE. 
 
 (2) Physical. 
 
 J. J. Audubon. 
 Nath'l Bowditch. 
 Alex. Dallas Bachc. 
 Benj. Silliman, Sr. 
 L. Agassiz. 
 Prof. Joseph Henry. 
 M. F. Maurv. 
 Prof. J. D. Dana, 
 Pres. Edward Hitchcock. 
 James Hall. 
 Arnold Guyot. 
 T. Sterry Hunt. 
 Jno. Win. Draper. 
 Principal Dawson. 
 Simon Newcomb. 
 Eliot Coues. 
 
 (3) Political. 
 
 Chancellor Kent. 
 Chief Justice Marshall. 
 
 " Story. 
 Henry Wheaton. 
 Horace Greeley. 
 Wm. Beach Lawrence. 
 Francis Lieber. 
 David A. Wells. 
 Pres. Woolsey. 
 
 (4) Ethnologic and Linguistic. 
 
 Peter S. Duponceau. 
 Albert Gallatin. 
 Henry R. Schoolcraft. 
 Geo. 'P. Marsh. 
 Tayler Lewis. 
 F. A. Marsh. 
 W. D. Whitney. 
 J. Hammond Trumbull. 
 Lewis II. Morgan.
 
 134 AMERICAN LITERATURE. 
 
 TRAVEL AND ADVENTTJKE. 
 
 Com. Wilkes. Richard H. Dana, Jr. 
 
 J. C. Fremont. Fred. Law Olmstead. 
 
 E. K. Kane. W. D. Howells. 
 
 Dr. Schliemann. H. M. Stanley. 
 
 Duyckinck's Cyclopcedia of American Literature is 
 worth consulting ; though Hart's Manual of American 
 Authors is more handy and complete, while reasonably 
 satisfactory. Tyler's History of American Literature 
 will, when completed, be the standard book of reference. 
 The opening volumes will richly repay perusal. The 
 latest edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica contains a 
 very thorough and appreciative survey of American lit- 
 erature. A similar survey, from the pen of E. P. Whip- 
 pie, was published in Harper's Monthly for February and 
 March, 1876. Allibone's Dictionary of Authors is, of 
 course, very full on American "titles. See, also, Gris- 
 wold's Poets of America and Prose Writers of America. 
 On separate authors the following works may profitably 
 be consulted : 
 
 Stephen's Hours in a Library (on Hawthorne). 
 
 Poe's Literati. 
 
 G. P. Lathrop's Study of Hawthorne. 
 
 Field's Yesterdays with Authors (on Hawthorne). 
 
 Wilkinson's Free Lance (on Lowell and Bryant). 
 
 Lowell's My Study Windows (on Emerson and Tho- 
 
 reau). 
 Whipple's Essays and Reviews (on Webster, Choate, 
 
 Prescott ; and the American poets in general). 
 Page's Life of Thoreau.
 
 PSEUDONYMS. 
 
 [For convenience of reference, the author appends a brief list of lit- 
 erary pseudonyms, some of which occur, without explanation, on previous 
 pages.] 
 
 A Country Parson Rev. A. K. II. Boyd. 
 
 Agate Whitelaw Reid. 
 
 Alastor James Orton. 
 
 A. L. 0. E. Miss Charlotte Tucker. 
 
 Amelia Mrs. "VVelby. 
 
 Amy Lothrop Anna B. Warner. 
 
 An Amateur Casual James Greenwood. 
 
 Anastasius Grun Count Auersperg. 
 
 A Parsee Merchant G. Moore. 
 
 Artcmus Ward Charles F. Browne. 
 
 Arthur Sketchley George Rose. 
 
 Ascott R. Hope Robert Hope Moncrieff. 
 
 Auber Forestier Miss A. Aubertina Woodward. 
 
 A Veteran Observer E. D. Mansfield. 
 
 Barry Cornwall Bryan Waller Proctor. 
 
 Bon Gaultier Theo. Martin and AV. E. Aytoun. 
 
 Boz Charles Dickens. 
 
 Carl Benson Charles Astor Bristed. 
 
 CJiarlotte Elizabeth -Mrs. C. E. Tonna. 
 
 Christopher North Prof. John Wilson. 
 
 Cousin Alice Emily Bradley Neal. 
 
 Currer Bell Charlotte Bronte.
 
 136 PSEUDONYMS. 
 
 Cuthbert Bede Rev. Edward Bradley. 
 
 Danbury Newsman J. M. Bailey. 
 
 Delta V. M. Moir. 
 
 Dick Tinto Frank B. Goodrich. 
 
 Diedrich Knickerbocker Washington Irving. 
 
 Doesticks Mortimer Thompson. 
 
 Dr. Syntax William Combe. 
 
 Edmund Kirke J. R. Gilmore. 
 
 Edward Garrett Mrs. Isabella Mayo. 
 
 Ella Charles Lamb. 
 
 Eli Perkins Melville D. Landon. 
 
 Elizabeth Wetherell Miss Susan Warner. 
 
 English Opium-Eater De Quincey. 
 
 Father Briyhthopes J. T. Trowbridge. 
 
 Father Prout F. S. Mahony. 
 
 Fanny Fern Sarah Payson Willis (Mrs. Parton). 
 
 Fanny Forester Mrs. Emily Chubbuck Judson. 
 
 Felix Ago S. S. Haldeman. 
 
 Gail Hamilton Miss Abigail Dodge. 
 
 Gath Geo. Alfred Townsend. 
 
 Geoffrey Crayon Washington Irving. 
 
 George Eliot Marian J. Evans (Mrs. Lewes ?). 
 
 Georges Sand Madame Dudevant. 
 
 G. Washington JEsop George T. Lanigan. 
 
 H. II. Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson. 
 
 Hans Breitmann Chas. Godfrey Leland. 
 
 Harry Gungo Lieutenant H. A. Wise. 
 
 Henry Greville Madame Durand. 
 
 Hesba Stretton Miss Hannah Smith. 
 
 Historicus Sir W. Vernon Harcourt. 
 
 Hosea Biglow James Russell Lowell. 
 
 Howard Glyndon Laura Redden Searing. 
 
 Ik Marvel Donald G. Mitchell. 
 
 Irenceus Rev. S. Irena3us Prime, D.D. 
 
 Isaac Bicker staff Sir Richard Steele.
 
 PSEUDONYMS. 137 
 
 Jack Downing Scba Smith. 
 
 Jennie June Mrs. D. G. Croly. 
 
 Josh Billing $ Henry W. Shaw. 
 
 Junius Sir Philip Francis ( ?) 
 
 Kinvan Rev. Nicholas Murray, D.D. 
 
 L. E. L. Letitia Elizabeth Landon. 
 
 Lemuel Gulliver Jonathan Swift. 
 
 L. N. E. Mrs. Ranyard. 
 
 Louisa Miililbach Mrs. Clara Mundt. 
 
 L. Pylodet F. Leypoldt. 
 
 Marion Harland Mrs. Mary Virginia Terhuue. 
 
 Mark Twain Samuel F. Clemens. 
 
 Max Adder Charles Heber Clarke. 
 
 M. E. W. S. Mary E. W. Sherwood. 
 
 Michael Angela Titmarsh -Thackeray. 
 
 Miles O'Reilly Col. Chas. G. Halpine. 
 
 Miss Orundy Miss M. A. Snead. 
 
 M. Quad C. B. Lewis. 
 
 Mrs. Alexander Mrs. Hector. 
 
 Mrs. Part inff ton B. P. Shillaber. 
 
 Nym Crinkle A. C. Wheeler. 
 
 Oliver Optic William T. Adams. 
 
 Orpheus C. Kerr Robert II. Newell. 
 
 Ouida Miss Rame. 
 
 Owen Meredith Hon. Edw. Robt. Bulwer Lytton. 
 
 Pansy Mrs. Isabella M. Allen. 
 
 Parmcnas Mix A. W. Kelley. 
 
 Peter Parley S. G. Goodrich. 
 
 Peter Pindar John Walcott. 
 
 Peter Plymley Sydney Smith . 
 
 Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby D. R. Locke. 
 
 Philip Quilibct George E. Pond. 
 
 Poor Richard Benjamin Franklin. 
 
 Porte-Crayon Gen. D. II. Strothcr. 
 
 P.P., Clerk of this Parish Dr. Arbuthuot.
 
 138 PSEUDONYMS. 
 
 Sam Slick Judge Haliburton. 
 
 Shirley Dare Susan C. Dunning Power. 
 
 Sophie May Miss S. R. Clarke. 
 
 Stuart Sterne Miss Gertrude Bloede. 
 
 Susan Coolidge Miss Woolsey. 
 
 Sut Lovengood Captain G. Harris. 
 
 The EttricTc Shepherd James Hogg. 
 
 Thomas Ingoldsby the Rev. R. Harris Barham. 
 
 Ubique Parker Gilmore. 
 
 Violet Fane Mrs. H. S. Singleton. 
 
 Widow SedottMxs. F. M. Whitcher. 
 
 Yendys Sydney Dobell. 
 
 Zadkiel Lieut. Richard J. Morrison. 
 
 THE END.
 
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